Wild Energy
by Nemo Nemini
Summary: On their way back to Madagascar the New Yorkers get caught in a place they'd hoped to never see again… Hoboken. Not only the two groups of zoo residents are destined for an explosive collision, but they also have to deal with Hoboken's new zookeeper and his shady affairs. Soon danger is closing in on Skipper and his team from all sides. Sequel to Wild Dances (second part).
1. Prologue - End of the Line

_***All copyrights belong to their respective owners. This contains violence, horror, gore, slash/yaoi, bad language and whatnot. If you're not disturbed yet, feel free to continue reading.***_

PROLOGUE

 **END OF THE LINE**

 _Maurice was running hard and getting nowhere._

 _These corridors all looked the same, all the more now that they were filled with black smoke._

 _Suddenly there was a loud bang, and the floor beneath his feet shook violently. Another and another bang followed, very nearly toppling him over. On the floors under the one he was on he could hear crowds of humans running and shouting, "Run for your lives! It's all going to blow into pieces!"_

– _And he, too, shouted, for Julien, for the penguins, but he could find them nowhere in this chaos. He had now managed to cross the corridor entirely but found that the door at its end was locked, and no amount of pounding, yelling, and pleading for someone to open it helped. The smoke filling the narrow corridor grew heavier. Maurice was coughing incessantly by now._

 _I can't breathe, he frantically thought to himself, I will choke to death!_

 _The thought unleashed unexpected powers inside him: he succeeded in prying a one-meter plank loose from a shelf on the wall next to him and hit the door with it as hard as he could._

 _Finally, it gave way._

 _Frustration gripped him in its vice: this wasn't the way to the exit either._

 _He had lost his way in this maze with all these twists and dead ends, through which, it seemed, nobody without a map of the building could ever find a way out. And now he found he had walked in a circle: he was back in the operating room he'd been taken into before_. _Thick haze of black smoke covered the ceiling. The strange machine in its center was now destroyed; an inferno was raging from it. Fire blazed from its top, shooting jagged shards of flame to the ground below. Maurice sucked in his breath. Ash burned his throat. He wanted to turn around and leave as fast as he could –_

 _"How could you do this?"_

 _A soft voice, a whisper of agony,_ _barely audible over the rising clamor around them. Maurice winced. Someone else was still around here. He quickly took a few steps ahead into the heat to glance around the machine – and froze with terror._

 _Clemson was kneeling on the floor, hunched over the dead body in front of him, his shoulders twitching with sobs. "How could you, Sky Spirits? How could you take away from me so much?!"_

 _"Clemson!" Maurice's eyes widened with surprise, and then a terrible rage immediately flared up in him again at the red lemur's sight. "What happened here? – Where is everyone?" he asked brusquely, clenching his paws into fists, barely able to restrain himself._

 _The red lemur winced and gazed up at him, a look of pure hatred on his face. "You! – Why aren't you dead yet?!"_

 _Maurice stared straight into Clemson's pale, tear-streaked face awash in bitter regret as he explained, "There was a fire alert before it was my turn. The doctors were all running away; I was able to escape when everything broke into chaos. – Now where are the others?!"_

 _Clemson looked away, wiping his eyes with the back of his paw. "Gone. Out there somewhere in that hellhole, I don't know where."_

 _"Why aren't you with them?"_

 _He shrugged. "You, go follow them then!"_

 _Maurice shook his head. "I tried. It's no use like that; this building is too large. I need the floor plans to find a way out. – But you, you have them with you, right?"_

 _Clemson lifted his head again, his eyes filling with fresh tears. "What?"_

 _At that very moment Maurice heard a cracking sound directly above his head and looked up to see a burning wooden beam collapsing from the ceiling. He jumped forward, rolling himself on the floor to avoid the blazing wood. Heat seared his cheek fur, crept down to his stomach, set his heart afire. He was chillingly conscious of how little time they had left to flee now._ _"The floor plans!" he panted, "We'll never find a way out of this labyrinth without them!"_

 _The red lemur held them in his paws. His wet eyes flickered briefly over them._

 _"To hell with them!" – And, right in front of Maurice's horrified eyes, he tossed them into the fire._

 _"To hell with it! All of it!" His voice broke off in a choking gasp. "Just go!" he yelled at Maurice – hateful words of deepest grief._

 _"What the hell are you doing?!" the older lemur shouted at him, "We need to get out of here or we'll be roasted alive! If you refuse to help me now, you'll be dying right with me!"_

 _Clemson looked up at him, a weird expression on his face. More tears flowed freely down his already wet cheeks. "Well, you know what? I don't care! I don't give a bloody damn!"_

 _Maurice blinked his eyes in confusion. He had no idea what was wrong with him, but he was past caring. He ran out into the corridor again, looking for a way to escape, just any way, anything, anything –!_

 _The building was caving in rapidly now; just as Maurice left the operating room, a section of the roof broke down, sending a part of the corridor behind him crashing right through the middle of the grand staircase. Maurice turned around to watch the last of it fall through. An icy fear gripped him._

 _Now he was stuck between some of the fractured floorboards above the fiery hole left in the stairway._

 _He could see thin columns of smoke twisting up from one the lower levels which appeared to be the underground garage. All the floors were on fire now; he would never make it down there before the building would collapse completely. He heard more shrill screams; panic reigned among the humans down in the garage. Everyone wanted to escape as fast as possible;_ _they were hurrying to their cars parked there, eager to put a safe distance between themselves and the fire. A line of cars moved towards the exit of the garage. Unlike him, they would surely be fast enough…_

 _Maurice bit his lip so hard that the marks of his teeth were left in it. If he failed, he would risk breaking every bone in his body, or being overrun by one of the cars, or both. He knew he would most likely die either way; there was no way to escape the flames except to dare this leap, and he preferred death by falling to being burned alive by far. He could feel the sensation of the ground shaking beneath his feet again and knew that this would be his very last opportunity to get out of here alive. He turned around one more time._

 _"The doctors are getting away," he called back over his shoulder, "If we manage to catch one of their cars, we could make it."_

 _He received no answer. The red lemur made no move to follow him. It made no difference to Maurice. He gazed into the depth,_ _trembling, clenching his fists, gritting his teeth._

 _This was the last chance for him, Maurice thought. What will be, will be._

 _Then he closed his eyes and jumped._

* * *

 **A/N:** _A happy new year 2016 to everyone who is still around. It feels so good to be back!  
_


	2. Chapter 1 - Surprise Visitor

CHAPTER 1

 **SURPRISE VISITOR**

* * *

 **HOBOKEN, PAST**

 _The street fight in front of the Hoboken Zoo went on until dusk fell._

 _After having successfully destroyed their android doubles, the four penguins had left heading back to New York in order to recover from their vacation. Ex-zookeeper Frances Alberta had been led off in her golden garbage can by Pervis McSlade's security guards, and the parks commissioner frantically tried to explain the press what was happening here. He also promised that a new zookeeper would be found fast, one who would finally manage to free the Hoboken Zoo from the bad reputation it'd been suffering from since its very opening day. With this announcement he left, and so did the journalists, and the ones concerned most by the whole mess – the inhabitants of the zoo – were left back on their own._

 _"What the hell is this?!" Savio angrily exclaimed as he undulated through the smoking piles of screws and metal wreckage that was left of Frances' androids and strewn everywhere around them, "The entire zoo looks like a mass grave filled with our own bodies!"_

 _"Well, at least they're all destroyed now. The new zookeeper is probably going to take care of this," Lulu tiredly answered._

 _But Savio shook his head. "I want them gone before the new zookeeper arrives. Who knows what he or she will be like – in the end it might be someone who thinks it's a good idea to use them again!"_

 _"Yeah, let's pile them all up, pour some gasoline over them, and burn them down!" Barry suggested._

 _"No, I wouldn't do that," Lulu replied, "These things are full of electricity. Come on, we don't want to risk a conflagration."_

 _Savio nodded his agreement. "That is true. In that case, one of you is going to provide his or her habitat to store them!"_

 _Everyone looked at each other with horror. "But, Savio…," Hans dared to speak up._

 _"I said I want this mess out of my sight, and I don't care what it takes to do that!" Savio hissed at him, "And since I'm the one who's in charge here –!" The puffin shrank back in fear when the giant boa wriggled forward and flicked his forked tongue at him._

 _Then Clemson raised his paw._

 _"No objections!" Savio hissed at him._

 _"I'm not objecting. I just wanted to say you can use my habitat." – Everybody stared at him._

 _"Are you serious?" Rhonda asked._

 _"Yes. Just help me carry the heavy parts over."_

 _"Very well," Savio quickly answered as if he was afraid Clemson could change his mind again in the next few seconds, "Hans, Lulu, go help Clemson carry whatever is left of these junk piles over to the lemur habitat." – The two ran to follow his order._

 _"Your habitat isn't quite roomy anyway, Clemson," Lulu said to him when they were cleaning the zoo from the debris of the fight and piling the deformed metal up in Clemson's habitat, "What do you want with all this trash?"_

 _"Eh, you know I've always wanted a shack in my backyard," the red lemur replied evasively, "So I'm going to use the metal parts of those androids in order to build one." The chimpanzee girl looked at him as if she wasn't too sure whether to believe him or not._

 _"Whatever you say…"_

 _After they were done helping Clemson, Hans invited Lulu over to the puffin habitat._

 _"So, what do you think the new zookeeper will be like?" he asked her on the way there._

 _"I have no idea. Can't be worse than Frances, though," she answered, and he nodded._

 _They couldn't know how wrong their predictions were._

 _How dead wrong.  
_

* * *

 **NEW YORK, PRESENT DAY  
**

 _"Who's the king? – King Julien!_

 _Who's the king? – King Julien!_

 _Get down further, get down, everybody party with_

 _king who? – King Julien!_

 _King who? – King Julien!_

 _Tonight will be forever, e-e-e-e-ever!"_

Skipper buried his head under his pillow with a deep sigh. This was exactly what it felt like: as if this night was never going to end.

It was but two months after their latest adventure in Hoboken, and neighborly relationships with the lemurs had already fully returned to being what they'd always been. After all that had happened, Skipper was certainly glad about Julien being back in his element, but this couldn't be the excuse for giving him, the team, and the rest of the zoo sleepless nights for the rest of their lives with a noise that even earmuffs were useless against. He got up from his bunk. Something had to be done.

Mentally he was already formulating a way to express their request in a decided, yet not too unkind way, when the red alert set in.

"Crikey!" they heard Private call out; hadn't they been all awake anyway, the intensity of the siren would've probably thrown them out of their bunks.

Kowalski hurried to switch on the TV and played the video message they had just received _._ The familiar face of Agent Buck Rockgut appeared on the screen. _"Penguins, you need to come to Ohio right away! The Red Squirrel has appeared around the Toledo zoo again; since then animals have begun disappearing mysteriously: in three days six ducks, two chameleons, and three apes have been reported missing! I need your help to find that villain ASAP!"_

"Got it. We're on our way." While Skipper answered him, his men were already gathering weapons and other useful gadgets and getting the car ready. Moments later they sped out of the garage, geared up for battle and ready for everything the world of secret agents and spies was going to throw at them again. When they dashed past the lemur habitat Skipper cast a look into the rearview mirror; with another sigh he watched the lemurs having their wild party while he and his team were running to save animalhood once more.

* * *

 **HOBOKEN, PAST**

 _And then, one dreary night in September, it was done._

 _Clemson was sure the others had already long forgotten about the androids when he fastened the last screw in place. He'd searched the shattered bodies until he'd found the one Frances had created to replace him – his own android double – and then had taken it to his cave to reengineer it. Therefore he'd been using Frances' calculations the entire time since he'd found them in her office a day after the penguins had uncovered her – and now he stood facing the result of countless long, sleepless nights he'd spent studying, reading, working the hardest he could._

 _With a mixed feeling of both excitement and anxiety he beheld the lifeless thing that lay at his feet. Right now it still needed some time to recharge._

 _The new day was already dawning and the candles were almost burned down when two sparks of red flashed up in the twilight – the eyes of the creature were opening._

 _Its chest heaving, it took its first breaths as it resumed from the long hibernation. Its limbs moved convulsively as it was testing its body functions. Then the red eyes began to wander around – and finally fixed on its maker. The wrench slipped from Clemson's paw._

 _He stared at his invention with wide eyes, unable to clarify his own feelings._

 _Now that it was alive again and up close to him, he saw that this android resembled a real lemur so much more than he'd ever been aware of; it was like his incarnated mirror image. And moreover, it was gorgeous. Clemson had gazed on its body when it'd still been unfinished; he believed he'd managed to rebuild the android quite handsome already then but now that the inanimate body finally came back to life and those muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, its beauty just seemed to unfold itself to its full perfection. The limbs were in perfect proportion, its features were stunningly clear, and the same soft auburn fur which was also Clemson's covered the work of cables and wiring beneath the artificial skin. The only striking difference was in its eyes which weren't green but red and piercing. Clemson wondered if there was any kind of conscience behind them._

 _One part of him was telling him how fascinating the creature was, what an overwhelming success his invention was. But there were other voices in his head, warning voices that told him there was danger, told him of all the things he now couldn't control anymore, mostly its supernatural strength._

 _And so, when the creature had managed to bring itself into a sitting position, and its jaws opened and it muttered some inarticulate sounds while a strange grin wrinkled its cheeks, Clemson began shivering from head to foot._

 _The creature kept on looking at him. It appeared to need some time to process the information. Then, in a very electric voice yet surprisingly well pronounced, its very first words passed its lips: "Hi. I know kung fu!"_

 _As amazed as Clemson was, as much he was scared as the creature spoke to him. After all, his fear outweighed his pride: he dropped the wrench with a soft scream, turned to escape, and took refuge under his billiards table. Clemson immediately regretted he'd given it the ability to move even without being controlled by a remote as it slowly, gravely approached with heavy steps and then lifted the table with just one paw. "And karate, too."_

 _"S…Splendid." Clemson couldn't keep his voice from shaking. "Please… don't hurt me, okay?"_

 _But nothing like this would happen. Instead the android just froze in the middle of the movement. "Decompressing files… decompressing failed. Booting process aborted." And then the red eyes went black and it just shut itself down._

 _"Hey!" Clemson plucked up courage and got back to his feet, picking up the wrench again. He watched the android closely. It restarted but didn't boot up again. He unscrewed the creature's back and looked at the screen hidden under the circuit boards. It showed silver text on a navy blue background with information about current memory and register values – the blue screen of death. He removed the RAM and cleaned it, then reinserted it and tried anew._

 _"Hi. I know kung fu!"_

 _"Yeah, we'll change that startup sound on occasion," he muttered to himself, "Just like I'm going to delete the lyrics of 'Happy Little Land of Hoboken' still programmed into you. Who on earth will need that stupid song ever again!" He tightened all the screws again while the android rebooted. This time it was successful._

 _"Booting process complete."_

 _Clemson immediately hurried to put a safe distance between himself and the creature again. He had erased any hostile preferences from its registry which Frances Alberta had programmed in there once with the intention to make the android destroy him and replace him then; in fact, he had overridden any former registry values and keys of its former operating system and wiped its hard disk blank._

 _Yet he wanted to be completely sure he was safe before he got too close to it; he was more comfortable with having a sofa put between the creature and himself before he talked to it again. He carefully peeked up at it from behind the backrest. He must've succeeded: it didn't seem to harbor hostile intentions toward him in any way. It just stood there scanning him with its camera eyes._

 _"Can you… can you understand me?"_

 _"Positive." The android kept on scanning him a while longer. "Subject: Clemson. Species: lemur. Special attribute: maker. Alignment: good."_

 _"Excellent!" All the basic functions were obviously running fine._

 _"Must determine location. Accessing data." It was silent for a while when it processed the information. "…No data found. Location: unknown."_

 _"We're in the lemur habitat," Clemson tried to explain, "It's our home."_

 _"Location: lemur habitat. Saving…" – Another moment of silence. – "Saving successful. Skill status: progressing."_

 _"What?"_

 _"The more we talk, the more I am able to develop language."_

 _Clemson blinked in surprise. "That means you're capable of learning? That's perfect, Android Clemson! That's much more than I'd hoped for." He noted this on one of the construction plans and then climbed up from behind the sofa, now convinced that there was no imminent danger._

 _"Android Clemson?" the artificial lemur asked._

 _"Well, yeah. That's your name. I've got to call you somehow, you know."_

 _\- Another moment of silent processing. – "Illegal command," the android stated then, "Filenames are limited to at most eight characters."_

 _"Then… just 'Clemson'?"_

 _"Illegal command. The selected username 'Clemson' already exists. Please choose a different name."_

 _Clemson looked at his invention with surprise. He wouldn't have believed the android capable of thinking so complexly already now._

 _"You're right," he replied, "Besides we can't both be called Clemson; it might be already hard enough for others to distinguish us by our looks. Then I'll call you… Mea."_

 _"Mea?"_

 _"Latin for 'my', 'mine' or 'belonging to me'. After all, you're my double, so I think that should fit… You're the first of my android model machines, the prototype of the new Android Operating System I developed. That's why your ID is A-OS-1."_

 _After having processed the new data, the android announced: "Kernel: A-OS-1. Codename: Mea. Saving successful."_

 _Clemson could hardly believe his own success. He hopped around in his cave, throwing his wrench and construction plans in the air. "I have an android! A working android! Gosh, how cool is that?! – With your help I'll be able to rule any zoo, shape flora and fauna as I please... You're going to conquer the world for me, Mea!"_

 _He took the other lemur by the shoulders. The android stared at him with wide eyes, clearly unable to comprehend emotions such as joy. Clemson smiled at him. Mea would learn it alright. He turned away from him, his smile twisting into a malicious smirk. "We'll build some more of you soon. Together we'll restore the others, too, and then you and your android brothers will help me to get what I've been wishing for all along… to become king at last!"_

* * *

 **NEW YORK, PRESENT DAY  
**

It was past midday when the lemurs got up. "That was one hell of a party, wasn't it, Maurice." Julien rubbed his eyes and blinked into the autumn sun. These days were quiet; some people were strolling around the paths, but as winter approached, fewer visitors came to the zoo each day.

"You bet. Let's take it slow today, alright?" Maurice rolled himself off the bouncy, kicked a balloon aside and padded over to the café. "How about I make us some smoothies while you tidy up the confetti?"

Julien gave him a sly little smile and stretched out lazily on the green plastic. "Mmh… How about you make us some smoothies, tidy up the confetti, and then give me a massage?"

Maurice sighed. As if he could've expected anything else!

"Alright, Your Majesty. This may take a while then."

It didn't bother him too much; he'd gotten used to it by now. After all, there hadn't been one single morning after a party that would've been different. And sometimes Julien was in fact most helpful when he was out of the way. With a grin he watched how the king shook Mort out of the branches of the fake baobab tree in order to wake him up.

While he got the smoothie maker running, he noticed a truck pulling up to the zoo transfer facility. Alice was shouting directions to the driver. With her walkie-talkie squeezed between her ear and her shoulder, she then unloaded a crate from the trunk of the truck and, along with another zoo worker, began carrying it over the visitor paths. Maurice carefully observed their way; soon it became clear that they were headed for the lemur habitat.

"Julien! Mort!" He called his friends over to the Smoothie Bar. Huddled next to each other, the three of them hid behind the counter from where they could see well what was going on beyond the fences of their habitat. "Look, it's our habitat they're coming over to!"

"Oh, we're getting a new roomie! Yay!" Mort hopped up and down.

But his comrades didn't share his ignorant joy in any way. The two older lemurs exchanged a long, silent, meaningful look – all of a sudden, the memories of their last new roommate were all too present again. Maurice could see in Julien's eyes that they were thinking the same things. He knew it was useless to tell Julien how highly unlikely it was that of all the lemurs it would be exactly _him_ they transferred here again – yet, of course, they couldn't be absolutely certain.

Since the past events in Hoboken they hadn't talked about Clemson anymore. Yet, if he ever had to face him again, Maurice didn't want to imagine how this would affect Julien.

As he watched the zoo workers approach with the crate, the lemur king's face turned pale, and he began to shake visibly. Something buried awoke inside him; the old fear came back to him. All the events of the previous encounters with the red lemur suddenly surged up through him again in a rush of emotions, each one more frightening than the other. The sensation of fear, humiliation, abject helplessness… Even now, the memory chilled and sickened him, and the mere thought of Clemson's tortures caused nausea to well up inside him. All the relaxation, the happiness of the previous moments was gone in an instant, and he slumped against the back of the counter. Suddenly unable to speak, he grabbed his advisor's paw and squeezed it tight.

Maurice enclosed his paw within both of his, coaxing it open to entangle their fingers.

"Listen, this is _not_ going to happen again!"

Julien looked up over the counter again and then back to him, his face riddled with anxiety. "Do you know what it says on the box?" he shakily asked.

Maurice shook his head. He couldn't see it from their current position, and even if he'd been able to, he probably wouldn't have been capable of identifying the letters as he still hadn't learned to read. He just prayed to the Sky Spirits that it would say anything else but Hoboken. Mort hopped up on the counter.

"Hey, why do you guys look so scared? There's nothing to be scared of!"

"Blessed are the ignorant," Maurice muttered and swept him back down with his tail.

Then the door to their habitat was opened from outside, and Alice and the other zookeeper came inside and put the crate down. Alice unlocked it muttering, "There you go, sweetie. Time to socialize into your new colony!" Inside the crate everything remained silent. She shrugged and left, closing the door behind herself.

A few seconds passed in total silence. The three lemurs looked closely, their breaths held. The crate slowly opened from inside.

A single sunray fell inside... illuminating a streak of red fur.

Julien gave a small whimper and buried his face in his paws. Maurice felt adrenaline rush through his entire body. He hastily looked around for something to defend them with, something like a weapon, but there was none; the only thing he had was his old cane. It was better than nothing.

"Stay there, both of you," he said to the other two lemurs and then leapt ahead out of shelter wielding his cane and then pointing it straight at the crate.

"C-come out, if y-y-you… if you dare!" he called, unable to keep the tremor of fear from his voice. He stared at the crate for several tension-filled seconds. Finally, something moved in its dark inside. Maurice clutched both paws around his cane.

And then a familiar red lemur stepped out into the light.


	3. Chapter 2 - Madagascar Calling

CHAPTER 2

 **MADAGASCAR CALLING**

"Not the nicest way to greet a lemur you haven't seen in a while, is it?"

Clover raised an eyebrow but her expression was soft. Brushing back her red fur tangled from the long journey, she nodded at the cane Maurice was holding out against her. "Are your neighbors here so terrible you need to defend yourselves like that?"

All three of them stared at her in disbelief.

"Clover!" They called out her name in unison, incredulity and surprise turning into radiant joy on their faces. Maurice threw away the cane, and all three of them ran up to her to embrace her. The three older lemurs clung to each other with little Mort squeezed between them. "You're here…?! What a surprise! – Oh, how long has it been since we last met? Dear Sky Spirits, it must've been ages!"

The warm welcome involuntarily brought a smile on her usually ever so stern face. "Since it's been quite a while now that you've left us, King Julien, I thought it was time for a routine check if everything is in order – I am, after all, still the leader of the Ringtail Guard. And then I'm here to bring you news from your kingdom, of course."

Julien nodded. "That's good. I guess we've really been gone for a long time now…"

Maurice waved them over to the bar. "Come have a smoothie with us, Clover. You must be tired after all these days of travel in a dark box!"

"True that. I've even been travelling further and longer than necessary, actually, because at first my crate was falsely delivered to a zoo somewhere in the Australian Outback…"

A little later they sat together in the Lemur Café having smoothies, talking, and getting to know everything that had happened on Madagascar during their absence. Clover was just as she'd been when they'd last seen her, the same as she'd always been, as long as they'd known her – a highly professional guardian entirely focused on her job. Not warm, not sentimental, although they'd been separated for so long; she wasn't unkind but there was a certain alert look to her piercing green eyes behind which there always seemed to be something going on. Even when she rested now, she wouldn't allow herself just for a moment to let the straight, tense line of her shoulders slouch, or to cease paying attention to what was happening around her.

Although she never said so explicitly, it was soon pretty clear to Maurice that the main reason of her visit was to convince them to return to the island with her.

"King Julien, I know you have faith in him and so do I but… Stevie really feels a little overwhelmed by your job," she told her king.

Julien nodded. "Well, that's perfectly normal, because being king is a hard job."

"He's a fine guy, honest, hardworking, but… he's no king. He just doesn't have any leadership qualities; he said that himself, and he also said being king isn't a job he'd want to do all his life. Also, he's a gecko, and he'd like to spend more time with his fellow species, which as king of the lemurs he doesn't get to do often anymore. And then he's no dancer, like you are. – You know, since you're gone, Madagascar's not been the same anymore. The pack is missing your royal influence… Without you we're lacking the beats, you know, the good grooves that keep us going all night!"

Julien smiled at the memory. "We certainly had the greatest parties there! Well, we have great parties here, too, and we have a bouncy…"

Even Mort seemed to think about it thoroughly now. Suddenly he put his smoothie glass down, bit his lower lip, and looked at them with big sad eyes. "But instead we have no waterslides, and the trees are so tiny, not at all like the baobabs, and they're so… so gummy! They topple over when you try to climb them. You can't hang out in them like in real trees, and I really do miss sleeping in the high branches, under the stars…"

Maurice leaned back in his chair and reflected upon it as well. It had never been a question to him whether he would miss Madagascar when they'd left there; his home was where Julien was, and if the king wanted to move on, Maurice would join him. But if he thought about where a lemur truly belonged, he would easily choose Madagascar over New York.

"And that's your realm here?" – Clover waved her paw across the habitat. – "It's barely half the size of a soccer field! You had a whole island to yourself, King Julien!"

Julien picked up his smoothie glass thoughtfully. "That's right, but… it's not so bad actually, you know. This place is customized to our specific lemur-ish needs, and it kind of grows on you when you're here for a while…" But then he slammed his glass back down on the table, looking angry all of a sudden. "But there's one thing about this zoo here that's really overly annoying: you can't have parties here in peace! We haven't even been starting for, like, no more than four hours, and we already have animals coming round complaining that we're making too much noise! We were always slamming doors, when we stay out in the park late we disturb everyone when we return from there, our music is being too loud… Always some niggling, petty complaint about whatever!"

Maurice smiled to himself. It wasn't that he couldn't understand their neighbors. It was just that Julien wasn't very considerate towards anyone around him; although they'd been here for so long, he'd never cared about reorienting to zoo life, a life shared with other animals. If they'd all been lemurs like them, Maurice guessed this wouldn't have been a problem at all.

"Clearly they don't appreciate a lemur king as a people of lemurs does," said Clover, "So why stay with them then?"

Usually Julien wasn't the one to think about a decision for a long time, but now he sat quietly for a while, lost in thought. Finally, having chewed his straw for a while in silence, he delivered his judgment. "She's right. We had a great time here, but a lemur king belongs in a lemur kingdom. – Maurice, Mort, let's go home."

Maurice gave him a smile. "Your Majesty, that's an excellent idea!"

Clover nodded. The sparkle in her eyes betrayed she was happier about this decision than she showed. "Right. Just how exactly do we do it?"

"The same way you got here, I'd say: via animal transfer," Maurice suggested.

"But I checked on all the transports and there's currently none to Madagascar."

"If only the penguins were here! They know how to change things in Alice's computer so it'll tell her to transfer animals in or out!"

Julien looked at him with surprise. "Oh, but we don't need the penguins, Maurice. We'll just walk on our own feet, what's the problem?"

"But Your Majesty… we're in New York! How are we supposed to get to Madagascar afoot? It'll take us ages!"

"In that case we should not be wasting so much time talking. The sooner we start, the sooner we'll be there." The lemur king jumped up from the table. "– Come on, everybody, let's pack our stuff and then get going! Alright, what do we need? Royal crown, smoothie maker, mangos, fan, badminton rackets, seesaw, plastic volcano…"

"Can I take the bouncy along?" Mort asked.

Maurice crossed his arms with a frown. "And let me guess: I'll be the one who's carrying the entire luggage!"

"Please and thank you." Julien ran off to pack his things, Mort following him instantly. Maurice and Clover stayed behind together for a while. "He hasn't changed a bit, has he?" Clover said with a very nearly amused look when Julien was gone, his right hand man left behind with nothing but a deep sigh, "Just as naïve and childish as he's always been."

"No," Maurice replied, "No, he hasn't." And he gazed after Julien, his eyes filled with warmth.

"Maybe he has a point there; it might actually be a good idea to start our journey by foot," Clover said then.

"But, Clover…"

"Of course we won't be able to walk to Madagascar, but we can walk to the haven and maybe find some freighter to the island there."

Maurice thought about this, and then nodded. "Right, let's go with that."

* * *

 **HOBOKEN, PAST**

 _About two months had passed since the completion of the first android model._

 _Ever since then, Clemson had plunged himself back into work. With Mea's help he'd soon managed to finish a second android, the A-OS-2, and then had two helpers already to work on a third one, and so it went on. Soon all the usable remnants of Frances' first android generation would be spent, and he'd have his own personal army ready. Oh, he couldn't wait for that moment to come! He'd been so focused on his business for the last few weeks that he hadn't taken the time to do anything but work._

 _But now he badly needed a break and a mango; he couldn't even recall when he'd had one last. Sometime this week, of course, but it was all a blur of constructing things and doing more calculations from dawn to dusk before dropping off to sleep right over the unfinished worksheets, exhausted to the bone._

 _So he only marginally noticed that they had a new zookeeper now, a guy named Charles Grady, and he'd only seen him yet once or twice from a distance. In front of a visitor group the man had once announced to erect a new Animal Care Building reconstructed out of some old barracks next to the zoo, where the animals should receive exquisite treatment after they'd suffered so much from his predecessor Frances Alberta. This was actually all Clemson remembered about their new zookeeper, and he didn't care about getting to know more about him or about what the other animals were doing either. All that mattered to him were his zoo domination plans. If they succeeded, he'd leave Hoboken for good anyway._

 _"I'm back in a minute," he told Mea, who was still working with the efficiency and pinpoint precision only an android could show. Yet the other android models would never be as elaborated as he was; there simply weren't enough usable parts for them left. The A-OS-2 didn't even possess a speech module._

 _"Affirmative… I mean, 'yes'." The android smiled at him. It still looked a bit eerie but Clemson knew it was well meant, so he smiled back. Over the course of the past weeks Mea had developed incredible skills. His learning ability had developed to a much greater degree than Clemson had ever believed it possible; he'd taught him to talk and act like a real lemur, and the android was getting better every day. When some of the other inhabitants asked him who the other lemur was, he'd even advanced to the point to call Mea a relative of his, and no one noticed._

 _As Clemson left his cave now and looked over the walls of his habitat, he was surprised to see that the construction work on the new animal hospital was already finished; when he'd looked at the building site last, it'd still been covered in blue tarpaulin._

 _A large neon red sign that read 'Alchimus Hospital' was on the front of the building above the main entrance door. He was also confused when he noticed that in the meantime all the walls of the zoo had obviously been topped with barbed wire as well as an electric fence that went endlessly in all directions._

 _The hospital was huge, much larger than he'd expected it to become. Other than the additional floors it didn't look like it had just been reconstructed; the façades looked still as dirty, shabby, and weather-beaten as before. Now, with dusk coming on, Clemson thought that there was something a little uncanny about this building. Its mighty shape towered over the zoo, casting an even mightier shadow over it; its gaping windows seemed to be watching the inhabitants._ _The fading sunlight suffused the otherwise gray walls with a stark light, giving them an eerie orange glow. The scaffolding still left on one side sticking up against the sky somehow reminded him of a gallows tree._

 _The zoo was already closed; usually the animals would start leaving their habitats now and visit each other or just wander around freely, but not a soul was outside today. He could see no one in any direction – that made him frown._

 _He climbed over the fence of his habitat to look around the zoo. A familiar figure suddenly showed up at his left – Hans. He was very fidgety and his eyes darted rapidly around the place before he grabbed Clemson by the shoulders. "Give me all your pink stuff. Please!"_

 _"What…?"_

 _"Your jewelry. Accessories, plush stuff, whatever pink trash you got from the Zoovenir shop. Give it to me, please!" Hans was still a little broken in his English, and now that he was obviously nervous, his accent came out even more. Clemson needed a moment to understand what the puffin actually wanted from him._

 _"I don't have anything like that," he replied, "Why don't you get some from the Zoovenir shop yourself?"_

 _"Because I can't pay, of course! I have nothing to give to Savio…"_

 _Right then Lulu and Barry came up behind him; they, too, kept looking around themselves carefully. Unlike Hans they were literally covered in pink; Barry had a fake pink flower tied around his neck which was way too big for him, and Lulu was wearing several necklaces and bracelets made of pink flamingo feathers._

 _"You seriously haven't got anything pink with you?" Barry said to Clemson, "Because really, you'd have to be suicidal not to –."_

 _"What the hell do you mean by that? Anyway, since when do we have to pay Savio anything for getting things from the Zoovenir shop?!"_

 _Barry raised both eyebrows. "Are you serious? Savio runs things around here. He's the king of the zoo; he said that means he owns the Zoovenir shop, too, and you know what he's like… you'd better listen to him!"_

 _"Well…"_

 _"Yes, it's all settled with Savio!" Hans confirmed frantically, "He makes the prices; he decides who's getting what and how much. But look, I've given him all my fish already; I've been starving for days now, and he still wants more! But if I can't pay him as much as he demands for the pink plush stuff, it means I can't have it… and neither can you, obviously."_

 _His eyes raked the lemur from head to foot as if he expected to find something pink on him after all if he only looked carefully enough. Clemson shrugged._

 _"Uh, no. Why would I want the ugly stuff anyway?!"_

 _They stared at him as if he was out of his mind._

 _"Stop kidding me!" Hans yelled at him; he seemed on the verge of despair. "I'm serious!"_

 _"So am I! What is this all about?!"_

 _The three of them exchanged some more incredulous gazes in silence. Then Barry raised one blue, poisonous finger. "Do you actually have the slightest idea –."_

 _But Lulu quickly stepped in front of him and interrupted him, "Well, you know about these regular parties Savio gives every Friday night, don't you? It's just that next Friday the theme is 'Represent your favorite Lunacorn from Rainbow Pixie Land' and we'd all love to go there, but we need some proper attire, of course. So, one could say pink is just the color of the week, you know… But of course you don't have to care about it, and if it weren't for the party I wouldn't either, because you're right, it looks so ugly actually."_

 _She smiled cloyingly at Clemson. Then all of a sudden they leaned in really close to one another and then gave him another big fake smile._

 _"Yes, that's just it. If you don't want to go to that party, which I guess won't be so great anyway, you shouldn't give a damn about the pink," Hans agreed, nodding eagerly._

 _"You really shouldn't; it won't suit your fur color anyway," Barry added as well, "You better don't ever wear it…!"_

 _Clemson frowned darkly. These three were clearly trying to hide something from him, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He'd been to Savio's Friday night parties a few times; he'd never heard that these were theme parties now, but he trusted Savio was crazy enough to come up with this, too. Still, judging from the weird way they acted, he wondered whether that party wasn't just a poor excuse. Before he could answer, the shrieking voice of another zoo inhabitant rang out all over the place, interrupting them._

 _"He's here! He's coming! Charlie's coming! Take cover, everyone!"_

 _In an instant their fake smiles slipped and then turned into genuine, stark fear on their faces_ – a _nd then they were gone in a flash, leaving Clemson behind in even deeper confusion._

 _'Charlie…?'_

 _Not knowing what to do, he hurried back inside his own habitat._

 _Just then a human man with tousled black hair came along the abandoned visitor paths, followed by two other humans. Judging from the white coats the three of them were wearing, they were doctors. Although he'd rarely ever seen him before, Clemson recognized the stout man walking ahead as the new zookeeper himself, Dr. Charles Grady. He carried a little girl of around four in his arms. She was wearing a pink cap and anorak, carrying a school bag in the same color, and also had her hair tied up in pink ribbons._ _Around her neck she was wearing a necklace shaped like a snake._

 _"…I don't know, Daddy," she was just telling her father, zookeeper Charles, "They're all so cute and pink. I can't make up my mind!"_

 _The man laughed and gently patted his daughter's pink cap. "Oh but dear, we did that before already, remember? You know that sometimes we have to, um, transfer animals to other zoos, and, um… they don't come back then, you know. But I want you to like our zoo, and I don't want you to miss any animal here, so you have to tell me which one you don't like as much as the others, and this will be the one that gets, uh… transferred. Okay, Lily?"_

 _"Hmm… okay." She nodded. Her gaze wandered across the habitats again, then brushed over the lemur habitat and got caught on Clemson. "Then… this one!" She pointed at him. "I haven't noticed this little monkey before. It's really ugly actually. It's not pink at all!"_

 _"So you wouldn't miss it too much if it were gone?" her father asked, reassuring himself._

 _Lily shook her head. "No, not so much." – Her father put her down to her feet. – "Can we go home now, Daddy?"_

 _"I'm sorry, honey, I still got some work to do. But Mommy's already home waiting for you; you can tell her I'll come as soon as I've finished here, okay?"_

 _"Okay. Bye, Daddy."_

 _Zookeeper Charlie kissed his daughter goodbye and waited until she had left. Then he entered the lemur habitat along with the two other men._

 _"Alright, then it's your turn, fellow. Let's go." Before Clemson knew what was happening to him, one of the doctors had caught a firm hold of him._

 _"Let me go! What do you want from me?! I don't want to get shipped out of the zoo! I've got work to do here! I'm on my way to worldwide zoo conquest, and I've been working hard for it, Sirs; I can't just leave now!" He struggled against them with all his powers. "Hey, Mr. Charlie, why don't you just let me do my work and tell your ugly daughter what a lemur is instead of bothering me…!"_

 _Clemson continued writhing in the tall human's grip but couldn't shake free. They put him in a cage and he already feared that they were going to take him to the zoo transfer facility and seal him in a crate there when he noticed that they were following the opposite direction. Instead of heading for the zoo transfer facility they made their way into the new Animal Care Building, the Alchimus Hospital. Clemson had no idea what this was about. He was one of those animals who were lucky to have never needed to see a hospital from the inside yet – not that he knew why he had to do it now! –; however, he'd surely imagined it a lot different from what he saw when the humans walked into the entry with him now._

 _Along the walls and on the ground every sort of hospital rubbish lay littered about. Mattresses, old tattered dressing gowns, gray-striped shirts, bedsteads screwed to the floor – all these remnants were piled up in heaps, crumpled and mixed up, moldering and giving out a sickly smell. There were radiographs hanging on the walls. All the windows had their shutters closed, and their moth-eaten and ragged curtains were drawn. The building seemed even huger inside than it appeared on the outside; Clemson couldn't have told the way they'd come from as the numerous corridors seemed to form a complete labyrinth._

 _Then they entered a spacious room whose walls were painted in a dirty red. The windows were disfigured by iron gratings on the inside. The wooden floor was gray and full of splinters. Bright lights flooded down on a huge operating table in the center of the room. It was covered with white rubber sheets and Clemson noticed there were broad black leather straps hanging down from each side._

 _Charlie bowed over the table, busying himself setting out instruments on a metal tray. When the other humans put his cage down beside him Clemson got to see him up close for the first time, and the new zookeeper was the ugliest human he'd ever seen._ _Of medium height and unusually broad, his body was lumpy, as though his operating gown had been stiffed with wadding. His_ _fingers, covered in black hair below the knuckles, were thick and stubby._

 _But it was the man's face that Clemson detested at first sight. The small black eyes, sunk into folds of white skin, were without a hint of expression. When he smiled, his top lip curled up until it almost touched his stunted nose – and he was smiling then as he looked down on Clemson's cage, displaying an unnatural expanse of wet, red gums above stumpy yellow teeth. He stood in front of the cage for a while, eyeing him closely, studying him from whisker to toe. What in the blazes was he staring at? Why was he grinning in that repulsive way? Why the hell was Clemson here anyway?!_

 _The zookeeper nodded to the other humans and they lifted Clemson out of the cage and onto the operating table. What happened next was executed so quickly and with such practiced dexterity that a moment passed before he grasped what they had done to him: they had strapped him to the operating table. The zookeeper had deftly secured the broad leather belt across Clemson's chest while one of the other humans fixed two more straps over his legs, one above the knee, the other below. Clemson was trapped. His anger was now mixed with fear. Struggling to sit up, he only succeeded in hurting himself. A sharp pain shot across his ribs as he pressed upwards against the straps. Staring up at the zookeeper's disgusting face, he saw the wet, juicy smile, and then noticed that the man was holding a pair of scissors in one hand and some tweezers in the other._

 _With a chilling shock, Clemson realized the truth: for whatever reason, they were about to operate on him – while he lay here, helpless on that rubber sheet, he was about to be operated on without any anesthetic._ _Fear clawed at his brain and forewarned of impending danger._

 _"Let's begin," said the zookeeper. No further words were exchanged._

 _Clemson felt his body break out in cold sweat as the zookeeper slowly and methodically began to cut deep into the flesh of his left leg. Straining against the straps with every muscle of his body, Clemson ground his teeth together in a desperate effort not to cry out in anguish but couldn't help it._ _The pain was immediate, raw and searing, bringing scalding tears to his eyes. "Stop it!" he cried, "Oh please, stop!" – But of course the humans wouldn't understand, and they didn't want to, either._

 _"Negative, Dr. Grady," a human's voice cut through the pain, and then Clemson felt the operating table being moved._

 _Through a veil of sweat and tears he caught sight of some kind of futuristic-looking machine at the back of the room, something that looked approximately like an MRI scanner,_ _but the straps prevented him from raising himself far enough to look at it more closely. All he saw was that it had a hollow center into which the operating table Clemson was lying on was now inserted. From outside the humans then closed the magnet room door and powered the machine up. Above his head Clemson saw a blazing white light spreading outwards – and then he felt a flash of energy across his body. It felt as if he'd grabbed in a set of exposed electrical wires. Every muscle fiber in his body contracted. He was being electrocuted. His body shook violently as thousands of volts shot through him. Clemson felt his eyes burn and his spine curve backwards. Through the transparent glass cylinder around him he locked gazes with Charles Grady. The zookeeper's expression was empty._

 _"It seems to have no effect, Dr. Grady."_

 _Somewhere far away, he heard the other human's voice again when the white light faded and the door was opened again. Clemson was unable to move at all, completely paralyzed, his fur soaked with sweat. A rush of cool air surrounded him as they pulled him out of the machine now._

 _"Fine, let's try something else. Strap it down more tightly if it moves but don't sedate it."_

 _Clemson began gasping for air as he felt his consciousness slip away. He couldn't see anymore; he was blind with pain. His whole body was limp._

 _But then the sound._

 _This angry, dark, terrifying sound he would never forget: the sound of a chainsaw buzzing. His mind collided with it; it assaulted him, then steamrolled through every cell in his body. Distant voices trickled out from the darkness nagging at the edge of his vision._

 _"Still no effect, Doctor…"_

 _"We're losing it!"_

 _"It doesn't matter. It's just an animal. You know that animals don't feel any pain… They just get used to it!"_

 _Day passed into night and back into day. Clemson's eyes fell closed, but his body continued to spasm in pain. And just when it seemed it would never stop, a cold blackness descended upon him, a blackness that was darker than midnight. The sound of the chainsaw shrank, grew fainter and fainter, and then stopped. Clemson collapsed on the stretcher, falling facedown._

 _"Negative on this one," he heard Dr. Grady's cold voice analyze the results, "Get me another one then. This one isn't going to last for long, and we can't waste any more this week. Get me another, stronger animal, and take this one back to its habitat."_

 _The last thing Clemson felt was a searing white hot pain exploding in his chest when a human hand closed roughly around him again._

 _Then his world went black._

* * *

 **A/N:** _Clover is going to have a guest appearance in this story, even though she's not officially listed as a character for this show. However, since they kind of share universes, I hope this is okay._


	4. Chapter 3 - Offside Touchdown

CHAPTER 3

 **OFFSIDE TOUCHDOWN**

* * *

 **NEW YORK, PRESENT DAY**

Half an hour later everyone was ready to go. Julien and Mort pouted a bit because they had to leave the bouncy and the plastic volcano behind but when Maurice had told them they'd either have to carry it themselves or they wouldn't take it along at all, they'd renounced. They regretted the penguins weren't here so they could say goodbye. Maurice explained to Clover that they were special neighbors to them; she suggested they could leave them a greeting card so when they returned, they'd know why they'd find the lemur habitat empty. And that was what they did; when they had finished the card, they slid it under the edge of the fish bowl and then turned to leave through the secret tunnel – which was meanwhile drained again – the penguins had shown them once.

They'd barely walked two streets away from the zoo when Maurice thought he couldn't take it anymore. They had disassembled the throne to be able to carry it since Julien insisted on taking it along at all costs, but the wood was still so heavy Maurice could feel his back bend painfully under the weight with every step.

"Come on, Maurice, we'll never get home at this rate!" Julien complained when they took the first break.

"Well, I certainly agree we'd be a lot faster if everyone carried their own things!" Maurice snarled back at him and they would've almost started to fight over the issue, if Clover hadn't interfered. Although it was a tedious task, with her help Maurice finally managed to convince Julien to leave the throne behind. The lemur king was angry about the loss for some time, but when he saw how much faster they proceeded his mood changed, and he soon became cheerful again. They went down another three streets.

Then suddenly Mort let out a blood-curdling cry. "My Gameboy! I forgot my Gameboy!"

"Oh, dear," Maurice moaned and palmed his forehead.

Julien shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Nobody will be missing it."

"But _I_ will be missing it!" Mort wailed, "Okkuu, he can't live without me… It's still on the shelf next to the Smoothie Bar. We need to turn around and get it!"

"Listen, I won't carry this heavy stuff back to the zoo just because of a Gameboy!" Maurice protested, "And then all the way back again! Oh no!"

"But I want my Gameboy!"

"We will not be turning around until I, who is the king, am ordering everyone to be turning around!" Julien hissed at him, "And I am ordering everyone to _not_ be turning around!"

"But I want it! I want it, _I want it_ , I WANT IT!" Mort went to wailing like a siren going off. The others kept moving, trying to ignore him but he stumbled after them crying and yelling, kicking the ground with both his tiny feet so hard he left deep tracks in the earth. "That's not fair! Not fair!" He continued screaming fiercely and stomping in protest, throwing a temper tantrum their nerves wouldn't stand for long.

"Alright, we'll go back but would you STOP YELLING now!" Julien finally shouted at him.

Mort fell silent in an instant. "Okay." He smiled as happily and adorably again as ever. The three older lemurs breathed a sigh of relief. "I forgot he could be like that," Clover muttered.

Maurice rolled his eyes. "Lucky you."

"There's a subway station." She pointed at a sign on a road nearby. "If we take it, we'll be back at the zoo faster."

Julien frowned. "Why didn't we do so in the first place?"

"Well, I'm not always so sure I can find the right one," Clover replied while helping Maurice shove their bags down the stairs, "I've never been to a town like this, you know. I'm still a bit confused with reading subway lines on maps…"

"At least you _can_ read, unlike the rest of us, so the choice which one to take is best left to you, I guess. – Now think very hard, everyone – maybe anyone else forgot anything? Then at least it'd pay off we go all the way back again…"

"Of course _I_ didn't forget anything, Maurice," Julien muttered, "I'm not like Mort…!"

They took the subway Clover chose to the best of her knowledge. The train rolled into the station with a screech and they boarded. It was noisy inside, filled with the usual hum. They edged their way through a forest of tall human legs, Maurice struggling once more with the weight of their luggage. They hid under a seat row.

"Remember, animals like us on a train are considered an anomaly to humans," Maurice told the others, "They mustn't see us, so be quiet and move carefully…" – And just then they recognized four familiar figures huddled closely under the opposite seat row, most likely on their way home from an exhausting mission. Skipper had scratches and bruises all over his beak, Kowalski had his left foot bandaged, Rico's Mohawk was burned, and Private's Lunacorn was stained with oil. They hadn't noticed the lemurs yet. They sat quietly until –

"HELLO, NEIGHBORS!" Mort yelled joyfully over to them.

" _What are you doing?!_ " Julien shouted back at him, " _Haven't you heard?_ BE QUIET!"

An instant later the old lady on the seat they were hiding under jumped to her feet. " _Rat!_ " she screamed, pointing at the floor, "There's a rat under my seat! – Oh my God, look at that, there are several! And they're _huge!_ " Now the man sitting opposite her jumped up, too; more cries began emanating from the crowd of people around them, and soon everyone in the car was on their feet, roaring their disgust.

"Someone pull the emergency brake!" a frightened voice called but luckily this didn't happen since the train was slowing down anyway to stop at the next station; the penguins were on their feet now as well, helping the lemurs to push and shove through the crowd of humans running about frantically and to get out of the car.

"Way to go, lemurs!" Skipper muttered when they were all finally safe in a dark place in the underground tunnel, "Now you terrorize even the areas outside the zoo. – Oh, who are you, lady?" He raised his eyebrows at the sight of Clover's unfamiliar face.

She straightened and saluted briefly.

"Clover. Leader of the Ringtail Guard and the king's personal bodyguard. Currently tasked with making sure that King Julien will get home safely."

"Get home safely? Well, why did you run off in the first place?!"

"By 'getting home' she is not meaning 'getting back to the zoo', but 'getting back to Madagascar'," Julien explained. "We just had to turn around because Mort was being silly enough to forget his favorite toy, but then we will be on our way to the harbor."

"Yep. We're leaving you, guys," Maurice said, "It's nice we got to meet you again after all before we go; we didn't think we would."

"You're leaving? But this is so sad!" Private called out. "We're going to miss you so much!"

His leader shot him a glare. Perhaps he would even think of their ex-neighbors from time to time but unlike Private, Skipper was looking more than forward to future lemur-less silent nights – all the more since their noisy group had apparently taken in now even a fourth member –, as well as to having a whole lot of dangerous and completely unnecessary rescue missions less to worry about. "Lemurs, this is a bang-up idea," he said, sounding almost overly affirmative, "I mean, I've been thinking for a while now that a zoo isn't quite fitting to replace a lemur, uh… kingdom."

Private blinked his eyes. "Really, Skipper? You have?"

Kowalski put his flipper over the rookie's beak.

"Lemurs like you aren't made to live in a place like this," their leader quickly continued, "You guys aren't city boys. You need nature. The zoo can't give you the natural environment you need; you need taller trees and much more room to, uh, to party…"

Clover nodded at him very approvingly. "That's just what I'm saying. You're definitely right about that, Mister…"

"Call me Skipper. And that's my team." He introduced the boys to her, and the other three penguins waddled up to her to shake her paw. "Travelling from here to Madagascar by ship is going to take way too much time. – You know what? I think we can take you there."

"You would?" Maurice seemed very happy about it. "But that's great!"

Skipper looked at his second-in-command. "Think we can handle it, Kowalski?"

The tall penguin typed something into his smartphone. "Considering the weather forecast I'd say… yes. We need a little preparation time, though."

"Good. Let's all meet at the JFK Airport at 1900 hours."

* * *

 **HOBOKEN, PAST**

 _When she saw the doctors returning him to his habitat, Lulu felt smitten with remorse at having tricked Clemson the way they had._

 _The lemur's face looked haggard and lost and drawn with pain. Torn skin and bloody welts littered his chest,_ _and o_ _n his left_ _ _leg__ _was a huge red ridge that ran_ _ _all the way down__ _his_ _ _thigh__ _, across the inside of his_ _ _knee and__ _down his_ _ _calf__ _._ _A cut on his cheek wept blood down on his face. There was red in his hair, too. His right paw clutched at a stab wound in his flank, which had been poorly treated; blood was running out of the bandages already. He trudged back inside his cave, dragging his injured left leg behind, limp and useless. Lulu wanted to call out to him but couldn't bring herself to. Still, she felt she had to talk to him, so she climbed over the fence inside his habitat._

 _To her surprise there was another lemur in front of the cave. She'd never known that Clemson had a roommate! Judging from how uncannily similar he looked to him it had to be a relative of his._

 _The stranger didn't seem particularly concerned about his roommate's bad state of health, nor did he pay much attention to him or her in general. He was just sitting there in front of the cave fidgeting with a screwdriver._

 _"Uh… hello," Lulu said but the other one didn't answer. She wasn't even sure he'd noticed her. Clemson had moved a big rock in front of the entrance to the cave from inside, but as Lulu walked around it she eventually found a small crack in the rocks where she could look through. It was dark down there; the cave was lit only by a very small oil lamp._

 _Clemson lay there covered in big leaves, shivering and hugging himself, but the pain didn't allow him to fall asleep; he dozed off from time to time, but then it would shock him out of sleep again, and so he lay trembling in cold sweat in a state between sleep and wakefulness._

 _"Clemson," she ruefully called down to him, "It's me, Lulu. Let me get in and help you!"_

 _No reaction. Yet she was sure he'd heard her._

 _"Listen, Clemson, I'm sorry for what happened," she continued, hesitating, "But it wasn't my fault. Please understand."_

 _He didn't answer for a long time. "Leave me alone!" he finally called out, his voice stronger than she'd expected, "You slut! You can go on pretending as much as you like, it's no use to me. You knew that it would happen, all of it. You knew that Charlie would come and what he'd do, and you could've told me. But you didn't!"_

 _"Clemson, I –."_

 _"You guys refused to tell me that our new zookeeper was a killer because you knew it'd give you an advantage if you didn't. You thought you couldn't afford to have anyone else to rival in getting those pink accessories that would protect you from being chosen as victim by his daughter. So you sold me out because you wanted to shelter yourselves, and that's all there's to it!" – His voice broke with rage and despair, and Lulu shamefully bit her lips. – "But I'm telling you, bitch, sooner or later he'll take you down, too. I hope he does! Oh Sky Gods, he'll bring us all down so hard…!" And he turned away from the wall she was addressing him through and wouldn't say any word more, no matter how hard she tried to talk to him. She gave up eventually; she had no more arguments. He was right, after all; this was why they had decided to trick him. When she hadn't known about the pink cover yet, she'd already been through this herself; her own scars still hurt badly enough._

 _Still she felt guilty now; she hadn't wanted it all to turn out like this. Why couldn't Charlie have had a little mercy just for once! She turned away, furious at him, furious at herself, and then found herself facing the other lemur again who was still dispassionately fiddling with his wrench. "Don't you want to do anything?!" she hissed at him as if all this was his fault._

 _It took the lemur a while to react as if he didn't believe she was really talking to him._

 _"Me?" he asked in a strangely electric voice and looked up to her, red eyes flickering unsteadily across her as if he was highly uncomfortable to be addressed by her. "Do what?"_

 _"Well, you're Clemson's roomie after all. – So he's your friend, isn't he!"_

 _He seemed to need time as though he had to analyze this question. "Positive," he said then._

 _"Then why don't you go and console him a little? He does look like he could use a hug right now, doesn't he. And since he probably won't let anybody in there but you…"_

 _The other lemur didn't answer. The features of his face were very stern, almost unnaturally immobile. He looked at her as if he had no idea what she was trying to tell him._

 _Lulu laughed a little. "You are a bit of an unworldly fella, aren't you." – She walked up to him and hugged him. – "Like this, you know? Tell him it's not so bad. Tell him he needn't be afraid because you're there for him. Tell him next time there'll be enough pink left for him. Just… anything! Anything that could make him feel better."_

 _The lemur was stiff and still within her embrace, looking all but comfortable. "Feel…?"_

 _"Don't you understand?" Lulu asked, letting him go; suddenly she was a bit frightened. He seemed so cold, so numb to all emotions as she had never witnessed it from an animal._

 _His glowing red eyes seemed to scan her. "I… do not know. Something in my binary operating system is changing… Unpacking data. Please wait until compilation of the script has finished. …Compilation successful. New data saved." Lulu could only shake her head, uncomprehending._

 _"What the hell are you talking about?!"_

 _"I do understand… now. When you do this…" – He made a gesture that indicated he meant an embrace. –_ _"…It is boosting my CPU; it is_ _as if my entire system_ _had recently been updated!"_

 _Lulu blinked. "Er… if that means, it makes you feel better… then, yes, exactly."_

 _"I am going to see my maker and tell him that I am now able to… feel," the strange lemur announced, "I estimate he will be satisfied with my progress in skills."_

 _"Uh… yes, do that. I, er… I have to go now. Bye!"_

 _Suddenly Lulu was overcome by the urge to put some distance between them._

 _'No doubt, he must've been one of Charlie's victims, too', she thought to herself. 'These doctors went too hard on him, and now he has lost his mind! He seems to consider himself a robot!'_

 _And then she turned and scurried away as fast as her legs would carry her._

* * *

 _"Clemson, wake up." An electric voice drifted like a haunt into the fog of his pain. "Please, wake up!" He struggled to open his eyes but the effort was too great, the pain in his ribs so white-hot and terrifying he couldn't get away from its grip. He waited, his leaping, uneven heartbeat thundering in his ears, knowing another racking pain would soon overwhelm him. These waves had a rhythm, like waves of an ocean. He blinked his eyes again, opened his mouth to speak to the shadowy face before him. 'Mea?' But he couldn't get a word out. 'Mea…'_

 _Another rushing wave of pain carried him on its crest, higher and higher. He heard his own cry far away, unearthly and frightening, and felt a cool, iron paw gently take his. He clutched it, squeezed it, holding on as if he would surely die if he let go. The pain reached its peak and held him there, silent and weeping, then lifted him and sent him whirling far, far away. It was relentless. It ebbed, only to return higher than before, each time carrying him further away._

 _He was no longer afraid. He didn't have the power to. He was only weary. So weary. He was drowning in pain. The thought didn't frighten him. He just wanted it all to end._

 _When darkness threatened to swallow him again he tried to scream, but no sound escaped his lips. Terrified, he forced himself to finally open his eyes. He blinked a few times and saw… his android._

 _"It's you…" His voice was hardly more than a whisper. He leaned back against the cushions, staining them with blood that oozed from a wound on his neck. His limbs felt swollen and uncontrollably useless. His blood seemed to boil. "It's good to see you, Mea."_

 _"You are damaged." The android had come closer and knelt down next to his bed. Now he leaned over Clemson, smoothing the damp fur away from his forehead. He was very close now, and Clemson relished the unexpected gesture. He watched Mea's features closely, saw how they contorted painfully at the sight of his own suffering. It seemed the android really pitied him! Clemson would've never believed it possible. But it was obvious that he was perfectly able to compute what was going on; there was no way to hide the truth from him any longer. Clemson stared at him, the vestiges of his torment still visible on his ravaged face, before he let out a choked cry and tried to roll away._

 _He couldn't; the android wouldn't let him._

 _"Don't," Mea whispered. His voice was as clipped and electric as it had always been, but now there was a strange tone to it that Clemson hadn't ever noticed before. Mea's fingers threaded through his hair, drawing his gaze back to him. "What happened to you, my maker?" the android asked, "Where did they take you?"_

 _Clemson said nothing. His heart was racing and he swallowed back another cry._

 _Then, in a very tender gesture, Mea trailed his fingers down his cheek. The unexpected touch sent a little shiver through him. It was the first time he ever witnessed Mea being gentle. The android had never done anything irrational before, anything that wasn't of any kind of use to him. After all, he was a computer – a prime example of efficiency but also of inflexibility. Usually he was doing only what he was programmed for. The only remarkable difference between him and any other kind of machine was his artificial intelligence, his learning ability. Still, for some reason Clemson would've never expected him to be able to ever learn about anything irrational, like emotions._

 _However, at a moment like this he was nothing but glad about it._

 _His paw clamped over Mea's, his fingers trapping and yet clinging to his and he shook his head, trying to speak but unable to. A part of him wanted to turn away while another voice inside him told him he couldn't bear the despair alone any longer. Mea's touch was the first kind gesture he'd experienced in a long time, and it made something inside him break._

 _He didn't want to give in._

 _He didn't want to fall apart in front of Mea._

 _He tried to control the shakes but now they grabbed him. Sobs broke free from deep inside him and burst from his chest as his bundled fears were shaken loose, and a horrible muddle of images, sounds and smells overwhelmed him._

 _The Alchimus Hospital._

 _He desperately tried to drown out the images of the torture that were flooding back into his consciousness, but failed. The memories of it were carved too deeply within his soul. He felt so lost, dead and buried under a granite slab of fear and pain. He huddled into a tight ball, wanting to shrink smaller and smaller until he could disappear. He was so jaded and weak and ill, and all he could think about was how these humans longed to hurt him so brutally for no reason he knew. His shoulders twitched with heart-rending sobs as he fought for control he couldn't find until exhaustion lowered him back to a numb place deep inside himself._

 _A shudder went through his body, a tremor of remembered emotion, as he felt Mea put his arms around him and draw him close. It was the very first embrace he ever gave his maker, and at the first moment he nearly smothered Clemson. However, he seemed to realize this as he immediately adjusted his strength, and when he would not hold him all too tight anymore, Clemson smiled a little through his tears to show him he was comfortable now. He felt small and breakable in his embrace but strangely safe. The android's arms were so strong and sheltering around him and he soaked in their comfort as they stayed that way for a while. He buried his face in Mea's chest as if by doing so he could just block out the whole world around him._

 _"Clemson," Mea said very quietly when he looked up into the android's face after all, "What is it? What has happened?"_

 _"Charlie… it was Charlie," he said. And that name was enough to make him sob again, so hard he could not take a breath. Mea held him and rocked him a while, until he could lift his head and look at him again. And then, one way or another, weeping, in broken sentences and out of order, he told him about Charlie, about the Alchimus Hospital, about what they had done to him._

 _"I'm sorry," he choked out, "I fear it's… it's going to be over soon. I don't know if I can survive this. If they take me to that hospital one more time, I might not return again…" More tears stole away his words. "Mea, my friend, I'm sorry if I have to leave you… You were the best thing that happened in my life. You were my only ally around here… my only friend. You would never trick me, like the others did. Thank you for always having been there for me."_

 _Mea watched him in silence. His paw trailed down Clemson's back, big and warm. He didn't quite seem to understand. "Why would you leave me, my maker?"_

 _"I don't want to. But I'm afraid it won't be long until they'll kill me."_

 _"Kill you?"_

 _Clemson nodded. "You know… Destroy me. Destroy me in a way I can't be fixed anymore."_

 _Finally something like understanding flooded the android's gaze._

 _"No!" he said, taking Clemson firmly by the shoulders, "You will not be… killed!"_

 _"I fear so," Clemson whispered._

 _"I shall not allow this," said the android. Clemson leaned against him again. His head was on Mea's shoulder, the android's silky fur brushing his lips, his body, hard and muscular, against Clemson's. He was warm beside him now and Clemson realized they had never been so close before, every part of their bodies in intimate contact. He knew that under this soft red fur there was a framework of metal, there was oil flowing through this artificial body instead of blood… Imagining this was weird; yet it felt so good, and there was nothing artificial to this tenderness, it felt natural, right, this closeness, their bodies wrapped around each other in an embrace of comfort and need. Neither of them spoke._

 _Clemson's heart pounded against his chest, and after many long moments his ragged breathing slowed down. Another long moment passed and Clemson now rested calmly against the android's chest. He was conscious of Mea's paw still stroking his hair and closed his eyes under the soothing caress. Now was the time, he knew, to roll away, to close his eyes, and to forget about this brief and wonderful moment of affection._

 _But he didn't. He couldn't tell why._

 _And when he looked up into Mea's eyes he knew with a sudden, thrilling certainty that he wouldn't either. The android was holding him more than tightly now. His eyes were like red stars shining down on him, and as these eyes gazed into his, full of sympathy and passion, he inescapably, inevitably knew what the android would do._

 _Mea kissed him._

 _It was a tentative kiss, soft and tender, but it startled Clemson's entire body into a vicious sort of longing. Clemson gave himself up to that kiss, let it reverberate through his spirit and mind, body and soul. But deep inside a thought went through his heart like a dagger – Don't! –; this body wasn't made for these kinds of things; it was artificially created, running algorithms he had written himself, and every part of it was screwed together by his own paws. Moreover, this body was his own; Clemson knew exactly how it liked to be touched, and this made it all the weirder. The only difference was that while it was in fact an almost exact replication of his own, Mea's body wasn't alive; its breathing was replaced by the humming of a CPU, and inside its chest there was no heartbeat but electric impulses. It wasn't thinking but calculating; it wasn't acting on instinct but on programming. And there was no such thing as being programmed for love – or was there? – It all happened in such a blur…_

 _Perhaps he would've felt differently about Mea's tender touch if the circumstances had been different, but in the sorry state he was, in the situation of being surrounded by enemies wherever he turned – a lunatic zookeeper, and zoo mates who were ready to turn him in to this man without hesitation – this testimony of love and devotion was all he could wish for._

 _Mea was his creation. He was that one ally he'd never lose._

 _Reality was wavering, the terrible images of Charlie slowly fading into the back of his subconscious, the details already eluding him. It felt so good, so right, like a wonderful and healing dream as Mea's paws moved over him. They skimmed his cheeks and neck as their kiss deepened. Clemson felt waves of heat flush through him, his breath escaping him in an unsteady rush as he pulled him close until Mea's fur pressed hot and firm against his. The two of them tangled, and then broke apart, panting. Clemson drew back from the android, his mind swimming with confusion, his body still pulsing from Mea's touch. He swallowed a rough breath. "But why…?" he asked, shaken, "Why did you do that?"_

 _Mea lifted his paw to Clemson's cheek to stroke away the last trail of tears with his thumb. "To make you feel better." Suddenly he looked very uncertain. "Was this… inappropriate?" There was deep confusion behind his red glowing twin-lensed eyes. "Emotion… I have access to all the files now. I know about its existence. Still I cannot… properly compute it."_

 _Clemson leaned against him, his heart still thudding heavily in his chest._

 _"Oh no… no, don't worry. It's just right the way it happened," he answered with a weary sigh, smiling a little, "I'll die a little happier now…"_

 _Mea wrapped a protective arm around his waist. "You will not die! I was programmed to shelter you, and I will not fail in my purpose."_

 _Closing his eyes, Clemson enjoyed the warmth of the android's body and the vibration of the engine inside him. "That's lovely to hear. But I have no hope we can make it. Apparently this has been going on for quite a while now… I have no idea what's behind his madness but it seems that Charlie is experimenting on us for some reason. And he won't stop until he's found whatever he's looking for… no matter how many of us bite the dust!"_

 _"We have to finish the remaining models. Then we will be powerful enough to leave this place."_

 _Clemson nodded. "Yes! I invaded zoos before… But this time it seems I can't make it alone. I need help… your help, and the help of those." – He pointed at the unfinished android models. – "If we manage to get the other androids ready, we should be able to make it out of here."_

 _A faint but very dark smile came across his face at the thought. "With all their strength combined we'll be powerful enough to walk away from here in a bloodbath… but then the blood that's shed won't be ours!"_

* * *

 **NEW YORK, PRESENT DAY**

At least the airport could be reached by using the subway, so Maurice had less trouble carrying things this time. Clover had also gotten them a luggage car with which he now moved their bags along, as well as Julien and Mort, who were sitting right atop the pile of luggage with big smiles on their faces. They avoided the main hall crowded with humans and walked around it instead, careful not to be detected. They found the penguins at the hangar they had arranged to meet in; it was the very last one in a line of hangars holding in storage only aircrafts out of service. To the lemurs' surprise they found them gathered around a big U.S. Marine Helicopter.

"So, little change of plans," Skipper greeted the arriving lemurs, "As you can see we'll use a helicopter instead of an airplane."

Kowalski fidgeted with his clipboard, looking a little embarrassed. "Yeah… I've made some notes on how to pilot a plane back then when we took off from Monte Carlo… but it appears I left them in that plane, and you all remember how that turned out, don't you. Its pieces are still scattered across a suburban rail yard somewhere in France, so… sorry about that." With that he put the clipboard beneath his flipper and turned to his leader. "Anyway, a helicopter will do fine. Plus, it is easier to handle when looking for a place to land."

Maurice frowned. "Are you serious? A helicopter won't make it over the entire pacific from here to Madagascar!"

Kowalski grinned proudly. "If it is rebuilt and ameliorated by yours truly, it will."

"Right," Skipper said; yet they could tell by the look on his face that he wasn't fully convinced. "Now, in orderly fashion, let's board."

The lemurs climbed in first and made themselves comfortable in the spacious cabin in the back of the aircraft while Rico handled their luggage. Knowing what their passengers were like, Kowalski had installed a door that separated the cockpit from the passenger seats; he'd told Skipper right away that the last thing he could need during the long upcoming journey was a bunch of lemurs making a racket while he was struggling to find a smooth flight path.

When Private reported that everyone had taken their seats, Kowalski set the radar for the latitude and longitude of Madagascar and then flipped a switch, which started the helicopter's engine. The propellers began rotating. Kowalski put on a headset with a microphone connected and then pushed another button and outside the hangar's top doors retracted slowly into the hull, opening the compartment to the nightly firmament. Then he raised the lever and the helicopter started to levitate and in the passenger section behind them they could hear Mort start to freak out. While Kowalski slowly accelerated, the other three penguins stood with their beaks glued to the window, looking down.

"Bye bye, Central Park," Private murmured, waving his flipper.

They saw a police car pull up towards the hangar but they were so high already, they could barely read the 'NYPD' on its doors anymore.

The display soon indicated they had reached maximum altitude.

Skipper had just settled in the co-pilot seat next to Kowalski, preparing himself for a long, quiet flight, when suddenly the main rotor on the top above their heads made a weird noise.

Kowalski looked up in confusion and then exchanged a look with his leader.

"Um, what was that?" Private asked just when there was another noise in the underbody. The craft rocked violently to the right, shaking them in their seats. Then the lights began flickering, both the headlights and those on the dashboard, and the engine started to lurch, whine, and lose power.

"Oh, oh…!" Kowalski stared at the dashboard with growing consternation. He pushed a few buttons but nothing seemed to happen. Lights kept on blinking all over the console, dials fluttering. There was a strange burning smell filling the cabin now.

"Kowalski –!" They were losing altitude now, and Skipper pulled his seatbelts tight. "Come on, we're not even over the Atlantic Ocean yet!"

"I just don't understand this!" the taller penguin muttered to himself, "When I last checked the engine, radiator water level, and battery, they all appeared to be completely normal. – Well, maybe… or, it could also be that – oh, but I'm not sure about this..."

"'Ameliorated by yours truly', huh? Maybe your 'ameliorations' were just a bit too much for the engine to handle!"

"Oh, but I calculated that –." They lost another several feet of elevation.

"Well, now you better recalculate and fix this or else get us down there pronto before we crash!"

Kowalski struggled to manipulate the controls. The damaged aircraft responded clumsily.

"Hold this, please," he instructed Skipper, giving the lever into his leader's flipper.

"Me?! I'm not a chopper pilot! I've never even been officially on aerial support during all my years in the service –!"

"I know, but it seems I need to do some soldering here." The tall penguin disappeared under the dashboard. "I'm connecting the bypass circuit now… or, I try to."

"Oh, dear!" Private held his eyes closed with a whimper while Rico sat snoring in his seat. There was smoke in the cabin now and a spray of oil on the windscreen. Cold air blew inside through a hole in the fuselage. The craft spun wildly, pulling back and forth. It was losing more altitude.

Skipper clenched both flippers around the lever. "Kowalski, status report!"

"I am randomly pushing buttons while we spin out of control, Skipper."

"Okay… Can I push one? I'd feel better then."

Kowalski appeared from under the dashboard for a second, holding a pencil-like electric soldering iron with a slender tip in his flipper. "Pull down the lever," he advised Skipper. – The leader did as he was told. The helicopter wavered, but was still airborne. Suddenly the cabin pressure warning device started ringing, and then the over-speed warning rang, too; they were descending at a very high speed now.

"Not so fast! Keep accelerating, or else we'll be descending too fast!"

And then the tail rotor failed and the helicopter spun completely out of control.

For a moment gravity was missing and they were pulled up from their seats in empty space. Clover looked up from her book for a second, lifted an eyebrow, and then continued writing into it. Julien spread his arms wide and laughed. "Look, Maurice, I'm flying!" he called over to the older lemur, who was trying to prepare a little snack for them.

"To hell with these air turbulences!" Maurice cursed, trying to hold himself in his seat, "Could the penguins hold it straight for a second? I can't cut the mangos like that!"

"Can I have my smoothie with pineapples, please?"

"No, Mort, sorry. The pineapples are in the big bag that's in the trunk. We can't get them until we've landed."

From inside the cockpit Private secretly watched their fearless behavior with astonishment. "Um, Skipper, shouldn't we tell the lemurs we're about to crash?"

Skipper shrugged. "That won't make any difference, will it? And I bet they're more useful when they're not panicking." With his face pressed against the side window, he was trying hard to see the ground they were rapidly approaching. "I think I see a public fountain or something like that. Not sure it's big enough though, but we could try a splashdown."

Kowalski got back behind the dashboard. "Alright, prepare for splashdown and –."

He didn't have the time to finish. All at once, they tilted nose down into the depth, and then the craft turned fully upside down, trailing smoke and tearing them toward earth.

 _Brace yourselves_ , Skipper wanted to call out to his men, but he couldn't; the fall robbed him of his breath. He stared out the window, trying to find the horizon and keep his gaze on it – but all he saw was the ground rushing towards them, the fountain under them, very close now, with tall statues of golden seals… Suddenly he felt strangely light-headed; something hummed through his body, like electricity. Time seemed to stop.

The world around him went blinding white, then black.

* * *

 **A/N:** _This chapter is dedicated to Danish author Dorrit Willumsen. Thank you for an interesting seminar._


	5. Chapter 4 - Not The Fall That Kills You

CHAPTER 4

 **NOT THE FALL THAT KILLS YOU**

There was blackness around him so deep, cold, and remote that Skipper believed he would never make it back. He did eventually, when three familiar pairs of flippers pulled him back up into reality.

"Skipper! Wake up! Skipper!"

The anxious sound of Private's soft voice moved him. He groaned and blinked his eyes open to look into the faces of his brothers. They stared at him, watching his face, praying, hoping, willing him to live.

"Skipper! You're alive!"

Private hugged him tightly when he tried to get up, hindering him effectively from doing so. The next thing he became aware of was that he must've been out for quite a while, as he realized that night had fallen in the meantime. They were somewhere outside; a dense web of fog covered everything, cold, icy fog that penetrated to the bones. Skipper bit back a shiver.

"I'm alright, Private... Good to see that you are, too. Now, what –." He rubbed his forehead as the latest memories of the crash returned to him in an instant. "Gentlemen, where are we? Unfortunately not in Madagascar, I suppose…"

He looked over at Kowalski and Rico and noticed with great surprise that they had begun digging a trench so deep and solid as if they were preparing for an artillery duel. Rico held his bazooka ready while Kowalski fortified the trench with some barbed wire.

"Skipper, you need to be strong now," he said, his face pale and tense, "We all need to be."

"Uhuh." Rico nodded and hacked up a stick of dynamite.

"What the –." Skipper struggled to get to his feet as fast as he could.

"Oh dear, it's awful, so very awful!" – With concern he noticed that Private's happiness at his well-being was only short-lived, that now the rookie was agitated, close to tears and despair, as he grasped his leader's flipper and squeezed it tight.

"Remember that fountain we were trying to land in," Kowalski explained, hesitating, "It was actually, uhm…"

"– We're in _Hoboken_ , Skipper," Private blurted out, "Of all the places we could've ended up in – we're in the Hoboken Zoo!" He buried his face in his flippers. "In _hell!_ We're doomed, doomed, doomed! – Oh Skipper, what are we going to do?!"

 _Hoboken…!_

Skipper didn't answer, couldn't answer. He was too stunned to say a word.

The utter absurdity of all this hit him like a hammer blow; no matter how far he ran, he didn't seem to ever be able to escape this place. The first time they'd crashed here with a boat; now, of all places they could've crashed in with their helicopter, it was this one of all zoos again. It began to feel like a curse. No matter what curves, twists, and bends his life took, sooner or later he would get stranded here again; to resume the battle against the most dreadful of his enemies, to prove he had the guts to take everything Hoboken would throw at him, and to either be part of the winning team when it came to gambling for life or death – or, to lose everything.

A memory of what had happened just before the crash came back to him with a sudden jolt: the fountain with golden seals spouting water… Now, of course, he remembered everything about the place.

"What about the helicopter?" he asked, his voice sounding weaker than he wanted it to.

"The zoo workers found us inside and logically decided to keep us right here," Kowalski reported, "Before they gathered us all in cages to take us to the respective habitats, we saw how they moved the helicopter away from the place we'd crashed in, you know, that little yard where the fountain is. Luckily they haven't taken it out of the zoo. I watched them tow it off to one of the storerooms behind the zoo souvenir shop. We may try to get to it and repair it!" – Skipper nodded, putting a flipper to his still throbbing forehead.

"Right… _Where_ in this hellhole are we exactly?"

The taller penguin cleared his throat. "Um… I suppose they still haven't fixed up a habitat for penguins yet as we've unfortunately been made roommates again with, well…" – Kowalski evaded his leader's piercing look. "…your old foe from Denmark." – Skipper held his breath. As if the New Jersey nightmare hadn't been dreadful enough already, it was getting scarier and uglier with every second. – "But we seem to be lucky, at least for now," his second-in-command quickly added, "We've already managed to secure the whole place since we found it empty. Wherever Hans is right now – for the moment, the habitat is ours."

"Good. That's at least some minor advantage for now. We need to use it. – That treacherous puffin! Are you sure you double-checked everything around here, because –." He paused, looking around. "Wait, where are the lemurs?"

Private cocked his head to one side, blinking his eyes innocently. "Well, I suppose they were brought to the lemur habitat, don't you think so?"

" _Hoover Dam!_ " Skipper cursed. Immediately thinking of their latest adventure in this place, he exchanged a frantic look with Rico. "Kowalski, Private, hold the ground. Rico, you're with me. Let's –." He didn't finish. As quickly and silently as they could, all four penguins rushed into the trench when they suddenly heard human steps nearby. Someone was approaching the habitat. The door opened. A short man emerged from the fog, followed by a slightly taller one, who was carrying a cage. They wore surgical masks, and their white gowns and boots were heavily bloodstained. Without a word, they put the cage down and opened it, then left and closed the door again behind them.

The penguins immediately recognized the puffin's silhouette inside the cage. Skipper clenched his flippers into fists. Just as he was about to give his foe the welcome he believed the puffin deserved, Hans took a giant leap out of the cage and towards them and started yelling as if he were in mortal danger.

 _"Assassins! Murderers! Murderers! Assassins!"_

His raw voice ripped through the silence of the night. The penguins flinched in horror. Private let out a scream as they now looked into his face. There was bloody foam around his beak, and his golden eyes blazed and flashed with madness, their fiery, delirious brightness contrasting with his ashy pale face and his emaciated features. He let loose another series of blood-curdling, terribly loud screams. "Killers! Assassins! I won't let you! I'll kill you first! I won't let you! You won't get me! Murderers! Killers!"

His wings flailed, his head jerked spasmodically. He looked up at them, eyes dancing, corners of his beak pulled back in a grimace. "You!" – He jerked one wing at Skipper. – "How did you escape them?" Skipper recoiled reflexively. Hans was going to jump at him, he was sure of it. He could see the intent as it blossomed in his eyes. Judging by his agitated state, the puffin seemed capable of just about anything.

He stepped sideways as Hans lunged at him, then grabbed him by the left wing and used the momentum of his attack to send him flying. A moment later Hans found himself lying face up on the meadow, howling at an uncaring moon. When he got back to his webbed feet, flailing and gesticulating at them like a madman, Skipper expected a counterattack but it would not happen. Hans just collapsed back on the grass. His voice broke; he coughed several times, then let out a loud, agonizing moan. He called out for Lulu. Tears streamed down his cheeks now as he called out again, sending her lamented name into the winds. Then he raised himself to a kneeling position, tipped his head back, pressed his eyes closed, and raised his voice to the nightly sky with a long, ghastly cry. Over and over again, he cried out, wailing, moaning, sobbing, rocking back and forth on his tail feathers, writhing in inconceivable pain.

The penguins stared at each other wordlessly. Finally Skipper plucked up the courage to approach him. "Hans…" He tried to speak to his enemy – but to no avail. He dared to put a flipper to the puffin's shoulder but withdrew it when he felt him flinch.

Stark horror reappeared on Hans' face, and he began to yell again at the top of his lungs: "Murderers, murderers, murderers! Kill, kill, kill!"

The English words came out with difficulty now and were followed by a stream of Danish probably completing them. He jumped up again and reeled, trying to keep his balance. It was horrible to watch. The expression on his face was now one of total abandonment; he was lost, hopelessly, helplessly lost in the morbid fantasies that had taken hold of him. Then the rage took over again – stumbling and flailing, he swung his fists around himself as if blinded, not aiming at anything, uttering screams and shrieks and screams again.

And then he ran up to Skipper and grabbed his flippers with a plea to save him from that horror which was so clear within his soul. He held the leader's flipper tight and looked around himself frantically for a place to run. But there was no escape for him– whatever he believed to see, whatever frightened him so, it was visible only to his eyes. There was no freedom, no relief from this pain. He began shaking, shaking all over – then he looked directly at Skipper with wet eyes and then said in a voice suddenly very clear and distinct, "Humans. They… they pet you and adore you and toss you popcorn, right? That's what humans do. Right? – Well, then they're not humans! They all want to kill us!"

Without any word more he passed out on the ground.

The four penguins stood bent over him in silence for a while.

"What… was that?" Kowalski finally asked with wide eyes, "What on earth was that?!"

Rico hunched his shoulders with his flippers out to his sides, a quizzical look on his face.

"Is he dead?" Private asked, shaking.

Skipper bowed down and felt his enemy's pulse. "Nah, he'll come around." He straightened up, collecting his thoughts. "– Never mind him now. Let's go find the lemurs pronto and make sure they're safe."

* * *

"Your neighbors have no idea how to fly a helicopter. We should've traveled by sea, like we planned to do it in the first place!" Clover shook her head in annoyance, stroking her tousled fur into place. "After all, we didn't leave the zoo just to get trapped in another!"

She climbed out of the crate the zoo workers had put them into after picking them out of the destroyed helicopter. Clover still remembered the humans' confused faces.

Luckily the accident hadn't been all that horrible after all; none of them appeared to be severely injured. She had badly hit her left knee at the impact, Maurice complained how he had jarred his spine but apart from that seemed quite alright, and Mort was as chipper as ever; only Julien had received some severe cuts during the crash, which Maurice treated the best he could with the little amount of their luggage they'd been able to save.

Then they came after Clover to look around where they were. In the meantime, night had fallen completely – a harsh, bitter autumn night. Mist surrounded them; the habitat they'd been brought into was dead and quiet. There was a cave in the vicinity.

"You're telling me! Usually the penguins know what they're doing…" Maurice's voice trailed off as a sensation of déjà vu overcame him. He knew this place… and so did Julien. Maurice knew that it had appeared to him in his dreams, back in the days when he would be ripped from his sleep screaming , his dreams filled with memories of everything that had happened to him here… _Don't let this be true. Oh, dear Sky Gods, please don't let this be true!_

He looked at the younger lemur just to watch his face drain of all color.

"No… not this place! Please, not again! Now – now this is starting all over again…!" Julien cried, and Clover and Mort were left clueless.

"It must be the shock," Clover said, "And then it's quite cold out here." She pointed at the cave. "Let's go in there and find some shelter."

 _"No!"_ Julien yelled at her, "Are you out of your mind?!" – She gave him a bewildered look.

"This place is cold," whispered Mort. "I don't like it."

"There's… there's another lemur living here…," Maurice tried to explain.

Clover shrugged. "Well, that's not such a surprise, is it? Where else could the humans have taken us but into a lemur habitat…"

"No, look, we… we _know_ the one who lives here. We've met him before, and he…"

– But here, his voice failed him. He carefully put a paw to Julien's shoulder; the king had buried his face in his paws as if hoping that if he blocked out all sight around him, he could block out feeling, too. Clover watched them, still perplexed, trying to make sense of Maurice's words. "What, are you afraid of him?"

Julien glanced up so they could look at him – his lovely face was distorted by deepest terror, his disheveled fur clinging in curls around his pale cheeks. And then he threw his arms around Maurice's neck and hid his face on his shoulder, shaking with sobs.

"Hide me!" he cried, "Please, hide me from him! He mustn't see me – he must not – he must not!"

"King Julien…" Mort nervously began biting his own tail when he saw him so fearful.

Clover seemed taken aback. "But what is it that's troubling him like this? – Tell me!" she urged Maurice, a sudden trickle of apprehension running through her veins.

So Maurice leaned over and, without either of the other two lemurs being able to listen, told her as quickly and decently as he could about everything Clemson had done to their king. Her face fell. Her eyes flicked off somewhere and then back.

"What…?" she asked, carefully articulating every word. There was a strange tone to her voice now and a dangerous twinkle in her eyes. "He did WHAT?!"

And for a moment Maurice feared she was going to go crazy again, really wild, like she sometimes did when she sensed that her king was in danger and therefore believed it imperative to prove her full set of skills immediately. She got literally caught up in the frenzy of combat before the combat itself had even started, scaring everyone around her witless when she swooshed her fists around then, teeth grinding, eyes flashing fire, and threatening to submit her enemy to the cruelest of tortures she could come up with.

Anticipating this kind of reaction from her, Maurice closed his eyes and curled his tail protectively around himself and Julien. "Please don't freak out on us now!"

Wondrously, she didn't. Her eyes turned back to normal and she looked as if she had just been told some neutral news. "Don't worry. This time you're safe with me. I will protect you; this is my job." Her voice was strangely calm. "I'm sorry about this, but we need to go in there. We can't stay out here all night – we'll freeze to death."

Maurice nodded. The cold was sinking deep into him already now. "Julien," he said softly, "We have to go." But the king only shook his head against Maurice's chest.

"I can't." He choked out the words. "I can't!"

Maurice took him by the shoulders and then he gently cupped his cheek, wiping a tear away with the back of his thumb.

"This isn't like before," he whispered soothingly into his ear, "Clover is with us now. You know what she can do! You won't be anybody's victim this time…" Then they embraced again, and Maurice held his king tighter than he had ever done before.

Julien's sobs ceased; he drew a deep breath and said, "Yes, let's go."

His paw searched Maurice's, and the older lemur held it all the way to the cave.

It was dark inside. Gradually they became conscious of a faint bluish light, an artificial white gleam enabling them dimly to discern their surroundings. They heard a noise – the sizzling and humming of a tool.

And then they saw Clemson.

A wave of cold shock swept over Maurice as he realized what the red lemur was doing. Before him on a gurney lay a still form – it was a dead body, the body of a lemur, stiff, rigid. And Clemson stood bent over it with a blowtorch running, the flame narrowed to a thin blue cutting blade, which he lowered right into the motionless body. Whoever the poor sap had been – Clemson was obviously busily engaged in desecrating his corpse. Maurice felt a sick sense of dread on watching it; he bitterly regretted that Julien and Mort had to witness this gruesome scene.

"EVIL!" Mort's voice echoed off the cave walls giving it an almost supernatural quality.

The red lemur flinched, turned the blowtorch off and pushed up his safety goggles. A look of huge surprise flashed over his face as he saw who had arrived.

"You?! What do you –."

But Clover didn't leave him the time to finish. "CHARGE!" she screamed and rushed at Clemson with a howl of pure hatred and rage, pressing her attack with all the strength there was in her powerful body.

* * *

 **HOBOKEN, PAST**

 _And then one day he'd just disappeared – and they'd been ready to believe that everything would turn out well again. Charles Grady had been dismissed from his job as a zookeeper due to suspicion of animal abuse; he'd been taken away by two police officers, and the Alchimus Hospital had been shut down the same day. The only one who'd regretted it was Savio; without 'Chainsaw Charlie', as they sarcastically called him now, he'd lost a great amount of influence on the other animals as the self-proclaimed King of the Hoboken Zoo._

 _By then Clemson had_ _finished_ _his android army and was ready to move out on his long-planned zoo conquest trip. However, with Chainsaw Charlie gone and Savio's dominance diminished, Hoboken wasn't half bad; and then there were_ _still those_ _Friday night parties to which Savio now added even more pomp and splendor in order to create a favorable climate for all his zoo mates to keep them from turning against him in rage about the benefits he'd derived for himself by making them pay for the protection from Charlie's tortures. To prove his generosity,_ _Savio even began_ _inviting out-of-state visitors to join them and sending invitations to the overlords of all the zoos of the Mid-Atlantic States._

 _That was when Clemson had found out that Julien, as the king of the Central Park Zoo, was invited, too – so, despite everything that had happened to him in this horrible place, he decided to wait a little and to have some fun with him to make up for the times of torture he'd endured here._

 _Just as he'd planned, sweet, naïve Julien had fallen for all his lies and become his obedient slave for several weeks of pleasure._

 _But then the penguins had come and ruined everything._

 _During their search for Julien, Skipper's mad soldier had destroyed everything he'd worked so hard on; Rico had been able to easily take out every android sent at him. Right before Clemson had gotten the chance to chase them and the lemurs in the penguins' own car, Skipper had called him his 'demolition expert'; it appeared he hadn't been just bragging, as Clemson had hoped so fiercely he would._

 _His last triumph was the shot that hit Maurice in the shoulder; yet Clemson doubted it would actually suffice to kill him. It was nice to imagine_ _how much_ _pain this would cause to Julien;_ _unfortunately, he knew that the chances of this happening were slim._

 _However, the pleasure of imagining this was the only thing Clemson could cling to when he then woke up from his swoon right there in front of the zoo wall he'd crashed against with the car. As soon as he regained conscience, the pain came back; he felt as if the blast of Rico's last stick of dynamite had shattered every bone in his body. Every inch of him screamed as he tried to move; his heartbeat was loud and highly irregular in his ears, and his lungs seemed to work twice as hard to sustain him. Moaning, he blinked his weary eyes open – just to see Savio staring down at him without a trace of pity._

 _"Just what did you think you were doing, lemur?"_

 _His voice betrayed anger, probably because Clemson's fight with the New Yorkers had broken up the party. Most of the guests had run off in panic after the power cut; only a few were remaining to excitedly discuss who the 'impostor' called Lincoln Douglas had been after all. Although it was only a quarter past midnight, the visitor paths were already empty of footsteps; now there were nothing but pools of confetti and some scattered balloons on the ground. The buffet was barely touched._

 _"You and your stupid robots disrupted this festival," Savio hissed at him, "You put me in a bad light in front of the guests by causing this mess! This is my zoo. If you want to fight the New Yorkers in my zoo, you have to discuss that with me first! And anyway, what did you think you were doing, rebuilding those metal trashcans? When Frances was there, you saw how dangerous they were! What the hell were you up to?!"_

 _Clemson swallowed hard and bit his lip. "Leave me alone. It's useless to discuss this now anyways! They're all destroyed." Although his whole body strained against it, he struggled to get to his feet and looked around the mess until he found his prototype. At the sight of him he recoiled in shock and felt the blood drain from his face._

 _'Mea…!'_

 _The android was shattered to pieces, and all his fragments were lying scattered on the ground. An explosion had torn up his casing; his motherboard was broken, the solder connections loose, LCD panels destroyed, the glass of broken screens littering the_ _cobblestones_ _. Frayed wires stuck out of a gash across his chest. Clemson held his breath as he reached for the android's paw, hoping for any faint upturn of his lips at one corner of his mouth, or the briefest flash of light in the red eyes – but there was none. As he touched his shoulder, his head tilted to the side at an unnatural angle and Clemson bit back a shriek. Mea gazed at him with nothing but the blank stare of a dead lemur._

 _"Wait, you're not… lemur, are you surreptitiously working on taking over my place as a zoo lord?" he heard Savio's voice again from somewhere, "You secretly build an army of super strong androids which you don't hesitate to send into battle without my permission… If I didn't know better, I would think you're out to overthrow me!"_

 _At these words Savio coiled himself up, ready to attack. Slowly, threateningly, his long body slithered around Clemson, encircling him. Still looking for a vital sign in his prototype, Clemson noticed it too late; the length of undulating flesh around him tightened until he was entangled in a mass of moving skin. Clemson gasped for breath._

 _"Let me go…!" The yellow scales undulated under his paws. His breath came in short bursts as he tried to get away, but the giant boa wouldn't let him. "I… I don't know what you're talking about. I had no such plans; I was just tinkering around with them. You know I always respect your wishes…"_ _He refused the urge to swat at the movement around his legs._

 _Savio glared down at him as if he didn't quite believe him. "So you're going to scrap what's left of these beasts, will you!"_

 _"Yes."_

 _"And no unauthorized zoo domination plans whatsoever, ¿entiendes? Have you got that straight?"_

 _"Yes."_

 _Turning away from him, the giant boa let him go, and Clemson fell back to the ground, landing hard on his side. A new flash of pain had him catching his breath._

 _"– Oh, and before I forget to tell you…" Savio turned to face him one more time. "Charlie was released from custody due to flawed reasoning. He's coming back next month."_

* * *

 **HOBOKEN, PRESENT DAY**

Skipper lifted an eyebrow at the sight which presented itself to him and his team as soon as they reached the lemur habitat. "Not bad," he commented, "I thought you lemurs might really need us here ASAP, but apparently, you don't."

With pleasant surprise he watched how Clover continued attacking Clemson mercilessly. She had cornered him and kept pounding him with her fists, and the red lemur, his face bleeding now, begged for her to stop again and again. This only made her hit him even harder until he was on all fours in front of her, inching his way over to a sofa nearby and then crawling behind the backrest.

Clover kicked him one last time before he curled himself up into a bleeding ball of fur, trying to shield himself with his paws. "Thank you," she said to Skipper, "I was just warming up actually; you know, I studied the art of dental combat and can kill 45 different ways with just my teeth. – And I will give you an example right now…!" She easily broke Clemson's defense, grabbing him by the chest fur and pulling him up from behind the sofa again.

"Such brutality always," Maurice muttered, holding his left paw over Julien's eyes from behind and the right one over Mort's, "Please make it quick." He noticed that although he seemed afraid to watch the scene, Julien was smiling all over his face, and this made him smile as well.

"No, please don't!" Private interfered, clearly terrified by her display of violence, "Can't we settle this another way?!"

Clover shot him a glare. "Don't you know what he's done?!"

"Well, sure, he tried to invade our zoo twice but others have done that, too, and we have never treated them so cruelly! – Right, Skipper?" The youngest penguin looked at his leader for reassurance.

Clover seemed confused. "Invade your zoo?" she snapped, "This is certainly _not_ the score I'm trying to settle with him here!"

Skipper bit his beak; they had never told Private the truth about what he and Rico had witnessed the last time they'd been here in Hoboken, what Clemson had actually done to Julien. And he sure didn't want this tough lemur lady to be the one telling the rookie now, shattering his childlike illusions of a world everyone would be at peace with each other one day. He was just about to interrupt the two of them when Kowalski tapped his shoulder from behind and whispered to him: "Private's right. Tell her not to kill him yet. We might still need him!"

Skipper frowned. "For what?"

"I thought it through now, and I think I might not be able to fix that helicopter on my own. But that lemur seems to be a pretty good engineer…" He took a deep breath before he added, "I hate to say so, but we may have to make a deal with him."

" _What?!_ " Skipper shook his head as if he couldn't believe what he'd just heard. "Make a deal? With that madman? Are you insane?!"

"I'm sorry, Skipper, but I can see no better option. We want to get away from this place as soon as possible, don't we? Hoboken's not our zoo. We can't just walk in and out of here whenever we feel like it! There is barbed wire and a huge electric fence here on all the zoo walls… And you probably haven't seen those little devices they added to it because you were still unconscious back then, but in the meantime I figured out that they are motion sensors. – We're trapped in here, Skipper. We can't escape without that helicopter, and I'm pretty sure I can't get it to work on my own. It's really badly damaged. I need the help of someone at least basically adept at electronics… which Clemson is, as much as I hate to admit it."

His leader gave him a look telling him, _you've got some nerve_ ; but then he went to separate Clemson and Clover. "Now, now; let's not rush things here. We should talk things over first before any permanent damage is caused."

Clover seemed reluctant at first but then allowed Skipper to restrain her. "How about we finish him off first and then talk?!" she growled but let Clemson go at last.

He sat down on the sofa, pressing a leaf to the sides of his face to stop his wounds from bleeding. He was still shaking from Clover's attack, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

Skipper looked down on the red lemur, getting a chance to thoroughly scrutinize him for the first time tonight. A big drop of blood ran down his gaunt and tired face. But it wasn't only Clover's attack; he was surprisingly thin and frail, a mere shadow of what he'd been when they'd last met. His cheeks were exceedingly pale, and there were dark rims under his eyes. All the liveliness had been burned away from his features.

Skipper also noticed he wore an excessive number of human children's accessories; he had a belt of woolen pink yarn wrapped around his hips, several sparkly pink plastic barrettes clipped all over his fur, and even a pair of rose-colored working gloves.

"She's not… you're not going to kill me now?" he then asked through chattering teeth, staring up at Skipper with swollen eyes.

"No." The leader crossed his flippers in front of his chest. "In fact, it looks like we…" – He heaved a deep, annoyed sigh. – "…We need your help."

"What?" Clemson looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"It might come as a surprise to you but we haven't come here just to finish you off. In fact, we're not here voluntarily. On our way to Madagascar we accidentally crashed in this zoo with our helicopter, and now the humans have confiscated it and locked us up here."

"We still have access to it though," Kowalski added, "We saw them take it to one of the storerooms near the souvenir shop of your zoo. So we might be able to go there and have some repair work done during a time they won't notice us, and then use it to escape from here as soon as it's airworthy again."

Now they seemed to have Clemson's full attention. "Oh, really?" He licked blood from a gash in his lower lip. His voice grew a little firmer when he added, "But… but why would you ask for my help after… after all that's been?

Kowalski sighed. "Because I can't do it alone," he admitted, "Fixing an entire helicopter is going to be some long, hard work. I need the help of someone involved with mechatronics."

Clemson thought about this for a while; then he grabbed a wrench lying on the sofa next to him and clutched it with both paws as if this was his last means of defense. "Well, why would _I_ help you?!" he asked, a dark frown drawing his brows together.

Skipper raised a threatening flipper at him. "Because we defeated you and because we'll make you if you don't like to be asked kindly."

It surprised him when Clemson actually rose to his feet, angrily tossed the wrench to the ground, and then turned away. "Well, let's just see you try it! Whatever you'll throw at me – I've definitely survived worse, believe me."

"Oh, you think so?!" Clover was immediately ready to tackle him again. She grabbed him by the throat in a crushing grip. "Shall I prove you wrong? Shall I?"

"It would be a pleasure," he hissed at her through clenched teeth.

With a bewildered gaze, she let him go again.

"Look, I could forget everything about our fight and pretend it never happened," Clemson explained, gasping for breath, "Except for one thing which I'll never forgive you: that you killed my best friend."

 _He_ would forgive _them?_ – What an utterly twisted perception of reality, Skipper thought to himself but said nothing as the last part of the statement had surprised him.

"Your best friend?" he asked, exchanging confused glances with Rico and Maurice.

"We didn't kill anyone," Maurice muttered.

Julien bowed down to Maurice, whispering to him under his breath, "Psychosis."

The older lemur nodded. "Absolutely."

"Oh yeah? Ask _him!_ " Clemson jabbed an accusing finger at Rico. The rogue penguin blinked his eyes and gave a grunt to utter his lack of understanding. Clemson walked over to the gurney he'd been working on before and waved at them to come closer.

"Oh no, not the corpse," Julien murmured, and Maurice hurried to put a paw over both the younger lemurs' eyes again. Hesitating, the penguins went to look at what lay before them.

"Don't worry, that's not a corpse," Skipper said, "It's just a robot that looks like a lemur." – Private and the lemurs heaved a sigh of relief. – "Wait, that's not… that's not one of those techno beasts you arrayed against Rico and me last time we met, is it?!"

Clemson shot him an angry glare but remained silent about the battle. "He's not a robot," he corrected Skipper instead, "He's an android."

"Technically, he's right," Kowalski commented.

"Whatever. This thing is totaled, and we should be very glad about it!"

"Uhuh." Rico nodded his agreement, remembering well what a fight it had been.

Suddenly Clemson looked even paler; he pressed his fist to his lips and looked for somewhere to sit down next to the gurney.

"I don't care what you think. I want him fixed. I've tried everything but I just can't seem to do it. Whatever I do, I can't locate the source of the system error that keeps him from booting up – can you help me?" he asked Kowalski, "If you can, I'll help you in return with anything you want me to."

Skipper blinked in surprise. "You would?"

"Yes."

The tall penguin bowed over the android's bodywork lying in front of them unveiled now and then looked at Skipper. "Fix that android? That shouldn't be a problem."

"Really?" The red lemur's eyes lit up with apparent glee. "Can… can you do it? Can you revive him?!"

"Is ununquadium a noble gas? Of course I can!" Kowalski raised an eyebrow. "I've had much more complicated technical problems to solve than this."

A smile lit up the lemur's face, so radiant and honest it was almost uncanny to watch, considering the fact that it was actually Clemson wearing this smile.

"Deal!" he said happily and shook Kowalski's flipper, "So it's your helicopter against my android. Pleasure to be in business with you!"


	6. Chapter 5 - The Real Me

CHAPTER 5

 **THE REAL ME**

After this issue was settled, the first thing Clover would do was ask Skipper to show her how to build a trench like the penguins had done it in the puffin habitat to put a safe distance between themselves and Hans. That way she planned to separate Clemson's cave in two parts, a very small one for him and a large one for herself, her king, Maurice, and Mort.

They could clearly see Clemson wasn't quite content with them taking up so much space and leaving him so little of his home cave, but after having experienced the full power of her attack, he obviously didn't dare to speak up – until in a dusty corner, buried under tons of other stuff, Clover found an old red motorcycle which Clemson had once constructed out of a baby stroller from the zoo's lost-and-found office.

"Hey, look at that!"

"Oho!" Rico uttered with enthusiasm, and they all gathered around it.

"Can't we use that to flee from here?" Maurice asked.

"Excuse me, you can't just walk in here and take all my stuff!" Clemson contradicted.

They just ignored him. Kowalski immediately tried to hot-wire the ignition. He pulled a few thin wires out of the harness under the handlebars and tried to make sense of the chaos of colors, but nothing made a spark or noise. All he came away with was an electric shock.

"It's damaged anyway. You're wasting your time," Clemson said.

Kowalski looked up, visibly shaken from the shock. "He might have a point," he mumbled, "Besides, for one thing, we wouldn't all fit on that jalopy motorcycle; and for another, even if we have a means of escape, we still don't have a way. Remember the motion detectors. This zoo is escape-proof!"

Skipper muttered a curse under his breath. Then he sent Rico, Private, and the lemurs back to the puffin habitat to get some barbed wire for the other trench. When they were gone he went off to the side with his second-in-command.

"I wonder if we made the right decision," he muttered behind his flipper, "Are you _really_ sure you need the help of that terrorist lemur? You can't give him what he wants! The risk is too great. You know how dangerous those things are, how mighty Frances became as soon as she controlled a whole army of them; she turned into a real evil mastermind. Now even if you rebuild only one of those killing machines for Clemson, he might possibly use it to cause great damage to us… hell, he might even be able to finish us all off!"

Kowalski nodded. "Yes, I thought about that, too. But listen, while Clemson may have some basic knowledge of devices and analog circuits, mine still far exceeds his. I _will_ restore his android, but he won't notice if I don't _fully_ restore it. I'm going to secretly attach a resistor to its energy core to prevent it from being able to use more than half of its powers."

Skipper reflected upon this. "That's… actually a good idea, Kowalski. Let's go with it."

* * *

As soon they were alone, Clemson and Kowalski started doing repair work on Mea.

Kowalski didn't speak to him a word more than necessary, but Clemson didn't mind. It was a pleasure for him to watch the penguin work; he was so quick with numbers he could hardly believe it. He could get an answer by mental arithmetic as fast as Clemson could read it to him off the paper. In general he was the fastest animal Clemson had ever seen at actually doing a drawing, give him a clear idea of what was required, and then knock it off in incredibly short time. He did mental arithmetic more quickly than Clemson could do with a calculator and solved equations in his head Clemson would've needed stacks of paper for.

During most of the work steps Kowalski wouldn't even bother telling him what he was doing, so Clemson was forced to sit and watch what the penguin made of his dearest invention. "Can you restore Mea the exact same way he used to be?" he asked him at some point, "You know, I mean, the way he acted, how he behaved… Can you actually restore his conscience, his _character?_ "

Kowalski looked up from his clipboard. "Mea?"

"It's his name."

"I see." If he was surprised, he didn't show it. He looked at Clemson though as if he wouldn't have believed him capable of building an android so well developed one could talk about 'acting' and 'behaving' when referring to him. Then he shrugged.

"Well, I don't know _exactly_ what he was like before, but I can try."

Clemson showed him his calculations for the android's construction and tried to read from the penguin's face if he was impressed, but it didn't seem so. He asked him if he had calculated in the same way or if he would've taken a different approach.

"Your calculations are correct," was the only thing the penguin answered, "But I wouldn't have written down every single step. I calculate mentally rather than using standard algorithms with paper and pencil."

He continued working in silence for a while. Suddenly he looked up at Clemson again, pushing his safety goggles to his forehead. "Darn. I left my hex tip screwdriver over in the puffin habitat. Would you go get it for me?"

Bent over the android's body as he was, his flippers covered in oil and gasoline, Clemson could hardly say no. He wished he would've had one around himself though because a voice inside his head told him not to go away and leave the penguin alone with his invention. However, of all the tools in his kit this kind of screwdriver was exactly the one missing, so he had no choice.

After he had returned, he thoroughly investigated the progress Kowalski had made in the meantime but couldn't find anything suspicious.

"Thank you." Kowalski took the screwdriver and worked on the body for about five more minutes. Then he removed his goggles and began gathering his instruments and clearing up the table. Clemson watched him with confusion.

"Now what?"

Kowalski looked at him raising an eyebrow. "He's ready."

"Just… just yet?"

"Yes. We're done here. Let's take a break and then start doing some maintenance on the helicopter."

Clemson lifted the tattered shroud they'd covered the android's body with and peeked underneath it. All of Mea's hardware was fully in place now, but apart from that he didn't look any more alive than he had an hour ago. Now that his bodywork wasn't visible anymore he just looked downright like any dead lemur. "Are you kidding me?!"

Kowalski looked at him as if he didn't understand. "Well, of course he needs some time to finish the system restore process and to recharge," he said then in a tone he always used when he meant to point out he was talking to someone non-sophisticated, "But I guarantee you he'll be mostly functional tomorrow. Well, he might still have trouble walking. I did my best to fix them but the wires in the mechanical axes of his legs were badly damaged." His face was as stern and serious as always. There was no way he was joking.

"Okay," Clemson said although he could still hardly believe it and then followed him out of the cave.

* * *

After a prolonged investigation of the damage, they began fixing the helicopter the following day. Luckily it was still in that old storeroom where Kowalski had seen the humans take it after their crash. It was parked there along with other machines and vessels found to be defective; it didn't look as if the humans planned on removing it from there soon, so Kowalski estimated they could work on it for a while without being detected by them.

They'd started fixing the back of the aircraft; the statues of the sea lions had collided with the tail pylon construction and smashed the rear stabilizer.

As they worked next to each other in silence, Kowalski watched the red lemur for a moment, marveling at how multifaceted he obviously was. He remembered how before in New York they had all been tricked by his visit and reminded himself not to let his guard down. However, when he watched him work hard like this, with a pencil tucked behind his ear and his eyes red from reading and from constantly wiping them with oil-stained paws, this was in fact quite difficult; he just resembled any young lemur tired from working through many nights. Right then Kowalski was barely able to believe him capable of the atrocious things Skipper and Rico had told him he'd done to Julien.

He looked so starved and lean, and when Kowalski asked him whether he wanted a break, he just shook his head and continued in silence. He hardly ever took a break, and if he did, it was mostly just to light himself a cigarette.

Since he'd found out how to crack the cigarette automat in front of the Zoovenir shop he chain-smoked from hour to hour. They would refrain from discussing this with him – until Maurice caught him trying to trade Mort cigarettes for his lunch mangos. He told him that Clover would blow up him, the cave, and the entire lemur habitat if he ever saw him do that again, and Clemson didn't take the chance.

Instead he obediently went back to continue working with Kowalski and Private, who, in the meantime, had been ordered by Skipper to assist them.

After the trench in the lemur habitat was finished, Skipper walked over to the storeroom to check their progress. "Hey, Frankenstein. What about your android now?"

Clemson glanced up at him only for a moment. "Ask your second-in-command."

"He's repaired," Kowalski said, giving his leader a stealthy wink.

Clemson still seemed to notice it; he gave them an overtly suspicious look.

"Now that the trench is finished, are you guys coming over to help us?" Private luckily asked right then.

Skipper shook his head. "First we need to find out what's going on in this place. We might be in great danger right now and not even know about it. We tried to talk to Hans, but he still isn't able to communicate. We also went around a little, but the other inhabitants were avoiding us… I believed at first that this was because they knew that we're from New York, but now I'm not sure anymore if it isn't something else they're trying to hide from us. Everyone is madly in love with wearing pink here, that's all we've found out yet." He shook his head, somewhat perplexed. "– You." – Then he raised his voice, pointing his flipper at Clemson.

– "You've been here for a while now, haven't you. Do you know what's wrong with Hans? Do you have any idea what's going on in this miserable place?"

The red lemur looked up innocently at him and then shook his head. "Why, I haven't noticed anything strange," he pretended, "I was busy working."

Skipper and Kowalski exchanged gazes. The excuse even seemed halfway credible.

"Anyway, we need to thoroughly check the puffin habitat once more, and I need all my men for that," Skipper declared and, moving in a little closer, added, audible only to Kowalski, "In fact, maybe Rico and I would do well on our own; but we'll be away for a while, and I don't feel like leaving you and Private back alone with that mad lemur...!"

He's been quite harmless yet, Kowalski wanted to say, but on watching Clemson now – how he looked at the ground, obviously trying to hide a smirk by biting down on his lower lip – he wasn't sure of it anymore. And then he was wearing all these pink accessories, too…

"Okay. We'll finish the tail rotor, and then Private and I will come join you."

Skipper nodded and left.

Kowalski went back to help Clemson with the part he was working on. "– What about the rotor head control jack now?" he asked, wondering why the lemur hadn't installed it yet although they'd spent the past hour finishing it.

Clemson moved it away from the other parts yet to be installed.

"Oh, I think we don't need it anymore."

"What…? But we just repaired it!"

"Yeah, but I guess it's not going to last for too long. I activated it before, and it acted kind of weird. It's not going to help us if we really want to make it away from here."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I think it was just too badly damaged." – He waved him over with an ink-stained paw so Kowalski could take a look at the part himself. – "Let's build a new one, a better one. Then we can be sure it'll work fine for all the time we need it."

Kowalski touched the outlet plate with the voltage detector. It glowed only very faintly. He nodded. "Alright… what do we do with the old one then?"

"Just deactivate it again. The new one will be much better anyway; it'll fulfill the same functions, only more efficiently." Clemson had gathered a similar-looking device from one of the other vessels in the storeroom which still seemed fully functional. Now he was about to adjust it to fit the helicopter.

Kowalski scratched the back of his head, still hesitating whether it was clever to discard the original part completely. "So we just leave the old one here?"

"Yes. No one's going to miss this trash, that's for sure."

He tossed the old control jack on the pile of deformed metal they'd weeded out as it was damaged so badly they couldn't use it anymore. Kowalski agreed after all.

"Okay. Go start working on the new one already. As soon as we checked out the puffin habitat, I'll be back to help you."

Clemson nodded, and Kowalski and Private left to join their team again.

* * *

He waited until Kowalski's steps had faded into the distance, then tossed the wrench to the ground and hurried back into the lemur habitat. He was relieved to find it empty; although their trench was ready now, successfully separating him from the second half of his home, Julien and the others were over at the puffin habitat with the penguins at the moment.

Clemson returned to the gurney and pulled back the shroud to examine the android's face. It was still motionless, red eyes closed. Kowalski had left the iron sheet over his chest removed so they could supervise his battery charging progress. The battery sign on the blue background said 47.4 percent. Clemson sighed and lit himself another cigarette. After another ten minutes he looked again, and it was now 47.7 percent… He moved the android's body a little to the side and lay down next to him on the gurney, then put his elbows on it and rested his chin in his palms, staring at the pixel-dripping screen hour glass with the little comforting hint ' _loading – please wait'._ 47.8 percent. His eyes drifted closed…

He awoke with a start when someone lightly tapped his shoulder. A familiar voice very close to his ear whispered, "Hey, wake up!"

Confused, Clemson blinked open weary eyes – and recognized his own face hovering above him. In his half-dazed state this was enough to scare him badly.

"Oh my gosh!" He leapt off the gurney and back at the opposite wall. "Y-y-you… you're alive!" he stammered, suddenly unable to believe what he saw – there was Mea, as vivid and functional as he'd been before Skipper and Rico had destroyed him and his brothers.

The android had risen to a sitting position; he'd disconnected himself from the battery charger and was resting on the edge of the gurney now, watching his maker curiously.

"Alive and kicking, baby." He laughed at Clemson's incredulous expression before he added, "Of course I mean, 'fully operational and compliant to specifications, my Master'."

"B-but how…?!"

Mea shrugged. "I have no idea. I thought that's what you were going to tell me now. – I activated when I was fully charged, but that's really all I know. My system control panel must've been completely reset. I can't even tell how long I was out… it could be five minutes or five years!"

Clemson still had a hard time believing this was truly happening.

This _was_ Mea in front of him – and yet he was so different from how he'd known him. For the first time he was having a conversation with the android, just like he'd have it with any animal. Mea was moving more fluently and talking more coherently than he ever had; his voice was now almost exactly like Clemson's, a little deeper maybe, and when he laughed, there was still a faint electric tinge to it, but it was nothing like the computer-generated voice he'd had before. His smile was real and deep, his features worked out to picture perfect detail, his face now mirroring the full spectrum of emotions which he'd hardly had the capacity to show before. There was nothing about him that'd make anyone who didn't know it believe he was actually an artificial lemur. No matter how much Clemson hated to admit it – it was undeniable that Kowalski had _improved_ him.

"This is incredible… You're so _real_ , Mea!" His gaze raked the android from whisker to toe as if he saw him for the first time.

"Why, thank you… I guess…"

The android smiled, and Clemson marveled at the authenticity of the sight once more.

"You're healthy and moving and talking better than ever –." Kowalski hadn't lied to him after all. If only he knew how the penguin had done it! He came back to Mea and then embraced him warmly. "This is… a wonder! I've been waiting so long for this to happen…" The android returned the embrace, and Clemson felt something flare to life between them. He hadn't thought this day would ever come. They were together again at long last.

"I missed you, Mea," he murmured, and suddenly his voice sounded choked.

The android smiled tenderly as he held him close and answered, "So did I."

Then he leaned forward, his lips brushing Clemson's lightly. Clemson shivered, a blissful chill washing over his body. He tightened the embrace, and then Mea made an unexpected movement that caused them to tumble over one another and fall off the gurney. Clemson fell over him, and Mea gathered him in his arms.

"Sorry. I can't move my legs an inch. The hinges must still be disconnected."

Clemson crawled under the gurney, reaching for his wrench. "They're not. – Well, the wires holding them in place are damaged…" He remembered Kowalski had said that he couldn't fix them.

Mea sighed. "Well, this means I can't even get to my feet, much less walk. I won't be very useful to you like that."

"Maybe we can do something to override the defective contacts."

Clemson searched through the mess on the floor of his cave until he found a pair of white inline roller skates he'd taken along from the zoo's lost-and-found office before Savio had claimed it to himself. "Here, try this."

Mea pulled himself up to sit on the gurney again. He began placing his feet into the tight-fitting skates; Clemson arranged the defective wires around his ankles the way they used to be placed, and then tugged on the laces before firmly tying them, holding the wires in place. With Clemson's help the android then got up on his feet. It seemed to work well; he was able to move his legs again after all. He extended his arms to steady his balance – then he gave himself a push, and took off like the Road Runner.

"Hell, no!" He cut across the cave in one rush – and crashed right into the opposite wall.

Clemson ran to his side to help him up. "You should do braking exercises first."

The android moaned, wiping his face with his paw. "Yeah, I got that."

Clemson hoped very much he hadn't become damaged again, now that he'd just been repaired.

"Are you okay?"

Mea nodded "Yeah. My hardware just got shaken a bit."

"We should go outside and practice a little. Just take it nice and slow." Clemson helped the android out onto the meadow so he could get a feeling for the strange terrain on his sleek skates. He couldn't help but chuckle a little, watching Mea stumble his way out of the cave like a drunken sailor. No sooner had he stepped out onto the grass when he fell down on his backside with a terrific thump. He stared up at Clemson. "Gosh, do I… do I have to stay that way forever now?!"

Clemson bit his lower lip. "I fear so. Sorry. You'll get used to it."

Mea heaved a deep sigh, covering his face with his paws. "Please tell me this isn't true!"

Clemson grinned a little on looking down on the android, who was so much stronger than him and yet seemed so helpless now. "Come on, I bet you'll find out you're a natural with speed and grace. And you look adorable on these roller skates."

Mea just sighed again but he seemed to accept he had no choice; after all, having to skate was better than not to be able to move around at all. With short glides he continued skating around a small section of the habitat. At first he sprawled stomach first onto the meadow again and again but after a while he actually seemed to have fun growing accustomed to it.

"So, what happened here when I was… out?" he asked Clemson when they were taking a break later on, "The last thing I remember is a crazy penguin rushing at me with a lit stick of dynamite. Guess you'll have to fill me in."

Clemson nodded, feeling the joy of the past hours inside him suddenly vanish. "Charlie is back. And so are the New Yorkers; the penguins and the lemurs."

"Oh my gosh." Mea's expression turned alarmed; it was obvious he had expected anything but that. "We're surrounded by enemies!" He turned to Clemson, cupped his elbows, and gently drew him closer. "– Are you alright?" He touched his paw to the side of Clemson's face and brushed his thumb gently across the bruise under his eye where Clover had struck him. "Who did that to you?!" – Clemson slightly shook his head to indicate it was fine but Mea clenched his paws into fists. –"…The New Yorkers, right?"

Clemson nodded. "It was that lemur girl, Clover... she's apparently a new member in the New Yorkers' pack. She's quite strong…"

"I'll shred her to pieces when I meet her! – What the hell are these pests doing here anyway?!"

"I have no idea. They came here with a helicopter; they said they crash-landed here or something…"

"Julien must've been longing to see you again." The android bumped Clemson's shoulder with his own until his maker grinned a little. "Come on, don't you want to have some fun with him while you get the chance, like last time we had him here?"

Clemson couldn't hide a smirk. "I'd love to. But they're all there to shelter him this time, and then there are the penguins, too…," he explained, "Our only advantage is that they haven't met Charlie yet. They have no clue what's really going on here! You should've seen them running around here, not having anything _pink_ with them at all, like they were suicidal or something…"

"But this is great!" the android exclaimed, red eyes alit with joy, "We can just wait until the doctors get them and then take their helicopter and scram!"

Clemson gave him a sad smile. "It's not going to be so easy. First, their helicopter isn't airworthy right now because it apparently took great damage when they crashed, so it has to be repaired first. And then I had to deal with them, you know. I admit it wasn't me who revived you; I couldn't make it on my own. One of the penguins, Kowalski, helped me to do it, but in exchange I had to promise to help him with the helicopter. And you bet they'll guard me well and make sure I'll fulfill my part of the deal…"

Mea gave an evil laugh. "Ph! I'm strong enough to finish them off, and then we'll fix that helicopter on our own! We don't need them to –."

He fell silent in an instant when the door of their habitat suddenly opened.

A human doctor entered, dressed in bloody white scrubs. A mask hung from his neck, revealing his cold, creased eyes void of any expression. "…But little Miss Grady is still in school," he called back over his shoulder to another man who was most likely his comrade, "How are we supposed to know now which one we're allowed to take?"

"Look, we both know our research must be as thorough as possible, so at some point we just can't base this important project on the whims of a little girl anymore," replied the other man from outside the habitat, "And Dr. Grady himself said we should bring him just any other animal, so let's go with that."

"Alright." The doctor inside removed something from his pocket.

Clemson saw it was a syringe. That bastard was going to shoot him with something.

"Dear Sky Gods…!" His face went ash white. He hadn't thought they would be back again so soon! Frantically he looked himself up and down, but apart from one tiny hair barrette there was no pink in his fur – he had taken all the trash off before and left it in the cave to be able to work better. Anyway he doubted that this would save him now, after they'd obviously decided not to care about this anymore.

And there was no way to escape and hide inside the cave now – it was near the entrance, and this was where the human came from; running there now would mean running right into his arms.

Mea, as he had just been reactivated, had none of the accessories either.

How they had laughed at the penguins before – and now the macabre joke was on them!

Before Clemson could think of what else to do, Mea pushed him into a bunch of reeds under one of the fake baobab trees which had barely grown high enough to cover him.

"Hide here," he murmured, "They haven't seen us yet. Let me go this time."

"What…?!"

"Let them take me to Charlie instead of you! They won't notice that it's not you because they only expect _one_ lemur in this habitat who looks the way we do."

Reaching out, Clemson took Mea's paw in his and clutched it. "No way! You can't do that for me. You know what they'll do to you there!"

"But it won't be the same for me… Look, I'm not like you," the android tried to explain, "I don't know about this… data you call ' _pain'_." He showed him an exposed wire along his flank which had been loosened during the many times he'd fallen to the ground before during his skating adventure. "See? No pain. Just damage. Nothing more."

Clemson hesitated a moment longer before letting him go. "Okay… but please take care!"

The android smiled at him without a trace of fear and then roller-skated out of the shade of the fake baobab. "Hey, silly humans, come and get me!"

* * *

"Hans! Talk to me, man!"

The penguins stood bent over the shaking silhouette of Skipper's old foe. Hans was more or less conscious again; his eyes were open, but they were glazed. He was kneeling at the border of the swimming pool of his habitat, muttering incoherent words and staring at the water surface with a terrifying intensity.

Skipper exchanged a gaze with his brothers, then knelt down next to the puffin and took him firmly by the shoulders, staring into his panicked face. "What has happened to you?! Is it something the humans have done to you?" – He pointed towards the exit of the habitat. – "They've taken you to this animal hospital, haven't they?"

The puffin looked at him as if at these words he was facing his deepest horrors all at once. His face became pale, then green, and his eyes sank deep into his skull, as if to hide from what they'd seen. "Sedate me…," he stammered, "Please, sedate me. SEDATE ME!"

With a scream he tore himself free from Skipper and collapsed again.

The leader shook his head. "It's no use."

Just then Kowalski had finished checking the information board at the entrance of the puffin habitat. "It says that within the last two months there were a total of five occupants in this habitat. I just went around asking animals in the neighbor habitats, but they weren't very communicative. The only thing I got out of them was that lately many inhabitants of this zoo disappeared under mysterious circumstances – and I guess so have the previous five animals living in this habitat."

" _Five_ animals just disappeared?!" Private asked with wide eyes.

Skipper frowned darkly. "Ten-four on that. This place is downright creepy."

Just then a voice rang out clear and sharp from somewhere nearby in the fog and drizzle. "He's here! He's coming! It's Charlie! _Run for your lives!_ "

"Who's Charlie?" asked Private.

"I have no idea. But let's take cover anyway!" Skipper rushed his men back into the trench from where they looked out for the enemy through their binoculars. Private huddled in the lowest section of the trench with a fearful whimper. Rico comfortingly patted his head, holding his loaded bazooka ready to fire while Kowalski was busy with his abacus as always. In the blink of an eye the whole zoo around them had fallen dead silent.

Through the binoculars Skipper watched a human figure dressed in a doctor's white coat approach the puffin habitat… and walk past it again. He was ready to let out a breath of relief when he saw the human was carrying a cage – and inside it a red lemur.

"Hey, look, isn't that Clemson?!" He hurried to give the binoculars to his second-in-command. Kowalski took a look as well; then he put the binoculars down, blinking in surprise.

"No doubt that's him. He must've gotten himself caught by the humans!" He frowned. "Why didn't he continue fixing the helicopter like he said he would? If he hadn't been running around out here but stayed in that storeroom, they'd never have gotten him!"

"Well, great! What are we going to do now?!" Skipper huffed, "You really can't leave this guy alone for more than a minute without putting a guard on him!"

"Maybe it's because Clover beat him so hard," said Private. "The zookeepers found he looked ill, and then they decided to take him to the hospital. Well, even before she beat him, he didn't look particularly healthy though, did he."

"No, but I still don't think that's really an animal hospital. Because you know, these things work the other way round: they put the animals in when they're ill, and when they come out, they're healthy." – The leader jerked his flipper back at the unconscious puffin. "If this was an animal hospital, then why would he be so ill now that they brought him _out_ of it?"

Private put the tip of his flipper to his beak, suddenly looking very frightened. "Oh, dear! Does this mean –."

"Well, let's find out ASAP. – Double-time it, boys!"

And as soon as there was enough safe distance, they belly-slid after the human doctor, right towards the entrance under the neon sign reading ALCHIMUS HOSPITAL.

Skipper looked up at the building.

The roof was rusty, the chimney tumbling down, the steps at the front door were rotting away and overgrown with grass, and there were only traces left of the stucco. At the front it looked inside the zoo, at the back it looked right at a zoo wall, from which it was separated by a black fence with nails on it. These nails, with their points upward, and the fence itself, had that peculiar, desolate, totally forsaken look which was usually only found in prison buildings. There was something eerie about the entire hospital and about the human doctors that walked in and out of there, but Skipper couldn't identify what it was that unsettled him; yet his gut told him it wasn't only the sinister gables and dilapidated spires... there was much more wrong with this building.

Private hid behind Rico's back with a scared look on his face, searching for the older penguin's flipper. "I'm… I'm pretty sure we shouldn't be here. This place gives me the creeps!"

Kowalski seemed hesitant as well. "Um, Skipper… Are you sure we should go in there?"

The leader crossed his flippers over his chest. "In fact, I'm pretty sure we should _not_. But you said we'd need Clemson's help to get away from this zoo, didn't you?" – Kowalski nodded. – "Well, he won't be able to help us if we get him back the way Hans is now. I mean, after all he's done to us it would be quite a pleasant sight, but he won't be of much use to us then. – So let's go save that fool of a lemur!"

* * *

Clemson secretly peeked through a gap in the wall of his habitat. He couldn't believe what he saw – the penguins were running to save him! – Or rather, to save Mea, who without doubt they falsely believed to be him. In any way this was the best thing that could've happened to him. Mea, he knew, was strong, much stronger than he was; he had survived Charlie's tortures before, so he was convinced that the android would, too – he wouldn't have let him go otherwise. But the penguins, they were animals like him, with the capacity to feel pain and suffer, and with the amount of suffering they could take being limited…

Even if only one of them lost his life, he knew that the New Yorkers' team would be seriously and disastrously weakened. And if he was lucky enough, confusing him with the android would be the very last mistake any of them ever made.

 _Can you see the real me, Skipper?_

He watched how the team reached the main gates of the Alchimus Hospital and then belly-slid right into the gaping entrance that swallowed them in darkness.

He strolled back innocently to the storeroom as if he'd never gone away from there, a sarcastic smile tweaking his lips.

 _Too bad you can't… Too bad you can't!_


	7. Chapter 6 - Don't Look Now

CHAPTER 6

 **DON'T LOOK NOW**

"So… where are the penguins, actually?"

Clover was nervously tapping her foot while the four lemurs were waiting in front of the puffin habitat. Their feathered friends had gone in there a while ago; Skipper had told them he'd wanted to try to speak to the puffin once more. But now they were nowhere to be found.

Maybe this was somehow connected to that strange cry of alarm someone in this zoo had uttered a while ago – "It's Charlie! It's Charlie!" –; Clover, as a competent guard, had naturally found a safe hideout for the four of them, but when they'd come back to the puffin habitat afterwards, the penguins had just disappeared. They decided to go back to the lemur habitat, but found it completely empty as well. Quite puzzled, they went to the storeroom then where Kowalski and Clemson had been working before, but found Clemson alone. The three other lemurs preferred to stay outside while Clover fearlessly went in to talk to him.

He wasn't working; he just sat on the pull-down stairs leading inside the helicopter, motionless, clutching the wrist of his left paw tight. He looked as if for a reason unknown to Clover, he was in severe pain. She couldn't have been more delighted about this.

"You! The terrorist. Listen up!"

She loved to watch how shocked he was to see her. His first reaction was to flinch and then to withdraw a few steps further up the stairs. Only after a while, when he was sure she wasn't going to attack him again, he said, "My name is Clemson."

"Whatever. Do you know where the penguins are?"

He shook his head. "No, I don't know. I thought they were with you," he answered innocently. But a glint in his eyes betrayed him; she was convinced he knew more than he told her. New anger flared up inside her, and she clenched her fists. She would just beat the truth out of him –.

Just then he suddenly went very pale. His breathing grew heavy and irregular, and he was beginning to tremble all over. He just stared at her with terror-glazed eyes, as though asking for something he couldn't verbalize. Then, shuddering and clutching his left paw tight, he collapsed. Clover was so surprised she stepped right ahead and caught him in her arms as he slumped off the pull-down stairs. He felt light and fragile in her arms, his fur brushing her forearms and wrists. She stared down into the pale face littered with welts and scratches, not knowing what to do.

Just then her three comrades dared to come in and immediately encircled her curiously.

"You killed him!" With obvious astonishment Maurice looked down on the unconscious lemur in her arms. "Oh, but Skipper told you not to…!"

"He was evil," said Mort.

"I didn't. I –."

"Ah well, now it's done, and it can't be reversed," Julien said happily, "Never mind, Clover. The penguins will understand that."

Maurice scratched the back of his head. "Sure, but what about the helicopter now? Kowalski said we'd still need him…"

"Guys, I _didn't_ _kill him_ ," Clover interfered after all, "He just went down like that, I don't know why."

Julien and Maurice exchanged a shocked gaze – and then the three of them withdrew to the back of the room as fast as they could, escaping the scene.

"Dear Sky Gods, then this is a trick! Don't fall for it!" Julien called to her.

But Clover just shook her head. "No, I don't think it is…"

She put Clemson on the floor and took a look at his left paw he'd been holding so frantically before, brushing back his fur which was almost the same color as her own. Underneath it she found his paw and wrist reddened and greatly swollen, the tissue damaged by wounds she recognized to be saw teeth marks. They had scabbed over; the skin around them was dry and ringed with pink. But there were red streaks emanating from these wounds, following the lymphatics up the arm, extending nearly to the elbow…

Just as she touched the injured skin, the pain brought him around. His eyelids fluttered and then opened to slits.

"Clover…?" As soon as he realized that his paw lay in hers, he quickly withdrew it. "Please… don't," he moaned, curling into himself as if this could protect him from the pain.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she said. _Not yet, while we still need you alive._ "What is that about?" – He refused to answer at first. – "How did this happen to you?"

"It's… been like that for quite a while now," he finally answered, still struggling for breath and fighting back the pain, "A while ago I got my paw injured with a… saw blade." – Clover raised an eyebrow. "– It was an accident," he quickly added, "But it just won't seem to heal. Most of the time it only feels numb, but sometimes when I work with this paw, it really hurts; I don't know why."

"Well, I assure you it won't ever heal if you don't do anything. You should really see a vet. You Hobokeners got that new animal hospital, don't you? Why don't you let the zookeepers check on you there?" – He stared at her as if she was making fun of him.

"I don't trust them," was the only thing he said.

Clover thought this over. She wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible. His bruised face couldn't trick her; nor could his miserable state arouse her pity, or his sad eyes keep her from seeing the atrocities behind them which he was capable of. If nobody helped him now, his state would grow worse; these red streaks would creep up all over his arm and chest until they reached his heart, and then they would kill him. However, if this happened before he helped them to get away from here, it would mean a disadvantage to them because they'd have to relinquish his support. Plus, it wouldn't have been _her_ who killed him, and she'd hardly be able to renounce this pleasure. "Alright; I will heal you then."

He stared at her as if he couldn't believe what he'd just heard. "You would…?"

"Uhm, Clover… You know what you're doing, right?" she heard Maurice's voice behind her; her three comrades had huddled in the farthest corner of the room.

"Yes, perfectly." She would explain them her motives later.

She then climbed inside the helicopter to search their luggage for the medical kit she'd taken along all the way. It wasn't hers actually; it belonged to Dr. S, but she'd borrowed it from him before her departure from Madagascar. Luckily, unlike the passenger compartment, the trunk hadn't been destroyed, so she found the kit intact.

When she came back to Clemson, pincers and needles in her paw, she watched with bewilderment how his face twisted in a helpless grimace of revulsion and panic as she approached him. "Oh, dear Sky Gods," he cried out, "Not again! Please, not again! No, no, no!" – And he shied away from her, a look of unabashed terror in his eyes. The three other lemurs watched the scene from a distance, the two younger ones hiding behind Maurice's back.

"Clemson's got some serious problems," Maurice murmured to his king.

The younger lemur nodded. "Oh, yes. But maybe they'll keep him from being dangerous, so we should be happy about this."

"It's his own fault," whispered Mort, "If he hadn't been so evil, he wouldn't have problems now."

"Maybe. In any case we should get away from him as fast as possible," said Maurice, and they all agreed to this.

"Hey, don't run off!" Clover called after him, "What's wrong with you?!"

Clemson was hiding behind the damaged helicopter, but she followed him. " _Don't do it!_ " His voice was all but a panic-stricken scream; he reached out a paw against her, but she slapped it away. Then he sank to her feet and started to cry. "– So cruel, so cruel." He sobbed. "Why are there lemurs like you? I bet you've always been that way."

This struck something inside her, but she quelled it. She'd heard this before, but from lemurs who meant something to her, and his opinion certainly didn't matter to her in the slightest, so now she didn't have to take it to heart. Still she wondered what it was about her that upset him so.

"If you're so keen on killing me, why not just do so? Why do you have to do it… in _that_ way?!" He couldn't calm himself, couldn't stop trembling until she firmly took him by the shoulders.

"Now listen! I said I wasn't going to hurt you, and I won't! Just let me take care of this wound. Your blood is poisoned; it's carrying enough toxins to seriously damage your health. If nothing is done, _this_ is what will kill you!"

He gave in eventually and let her come close to him but she read from his eyes that he didn't trust her one bit. Hesitating, he finally placed his injured paw in hers. It was frail and cold and shaking hard. Somehow she felt uncomfortable holding it. When she set out the medical instruments he was getting so nervous he bit the nails of his healthy paw bloody. Carefully she brushed her thumb over his knuckles, trying to ease his shaking – she needed to be precise, and if she operated on him like that, she would risk cutting the wrong veins – until he finally curled his fingers a little around hers. His trembling subsided but he kept staring at her with wild, red-rimmed eyes.

She applied some topical cream to his skin and fur and tried to remember what Dr. S had told her during the internship she had done in his cave last year. When she lowered the scalpel to his wrist, Clemson closed his eyes and turned his face away. She worked quickly and efficiently, trying to keep the area clear of blood to the best of her abilities.

When she'd finished, she wrapped up his arm in many layers of soft white gauze.

It was only then that he opened his eyes and looked at her again. He had stopped trembling; his bandaged paw rested in hers, warm and still. He looked down on it as if he couldn't quite believe it. "Thank you," he said.

He didn't look happy or relieved. If anything, he looked confused.

"I hope that's about it," she said. "Let me check this again later; I might have to stitch you up one more time." Then she closed the kit, got up, and walked away to join her pack again.

* * *

"Remember, boys, penguins go down fighting!" Skipper tried to encourage his men when they entered the building. However, once behind the heavy doors, he didn't feel too bold himself anymore. The quiet of the hospital surrounded them in an instant; a kind of silence that seemed to scream through the large, poorly lit lobby room and create a black hole that threatened to suck them into oblivion the moment they entered it. The air around them was stale, antiseptically deadened. Skipper could hear a strange sound from somewhere; it was deep and humming and made the tiny feathers on the back of his neck bristle.

No one seemed to be on duty at the reception desk; they weren't in danger of being discovered by humans. Next to the entrance doors they looked for some floor plans but found none. Skipper recalled what the hospital had looked like from the outside; according to the arrangement of windows it had two floors. He thought the building itself actually looked taller, but he was content with it; it meant there was less space they'd have to search.

"Alright, let's get this over with ASAP. The only thing we know for sure is that this thing has two floors. So, Kowalski, you're with me down here; Rico, Private, you go for the second floor. We'll meet again right here at the entrance in thirty minutes at the latest."

He turned to Private and Rico and handed them a herring each so they could defend themselves if necessary. Then he took out a piece of white chalk, broke it in two pieces, and gave one of them to Private.

"If you guys find Clemson somewhere up there before we do, get him out of here and don't wait for us. Mark the entrance door with this so when we come back there, we'll know that you've already left. If the two of us are successful first, we'll do the same thing."

Rico nodded but Private seemed very uneasy. "Um, Skipper… should we really separate?"

"Well, there are two floors, and four of us. That way we'll be much faster; and we don't want to be a minute longer in this place than necessary, do we."

Rico patted the rookie's shoulder, mumbling something very close to 'We'll be alright', and then they were gone.

The two remaining penguins began checking out the place right away. It seemed strangely abandoned; there didn't seem to be any humans around here. They passed through the lobby into a corridor; it looked run down, with scuffed walls and missing ceiling tiles, and there were many doors on either side. Some of them were stuck in open positions, and others in closed positions so they couldn't get in.

They cautiously waddled inside one of the rooms with an open door.

The barred windows, like hollow eyes, looked down on them as they entered. They gazed around in the vacant room. Next to the door was a medicine cabinet packed with things unknown to them. They wouldn't touch them. In the center of the room stood a rusty bedstead. Skipper stepped ahead to observe it more closely, and an icy shiver raced down his spine – blood was pooled in black puddles all around it, splattered across the surface of the floor. Large, bloody human footprints crisscrossed and intersected across the once white tiles. Some medical equipment was strewn across the saturated bedsheet; it looked like someone had been treated there lately as all the equipment was very dirty. Skipper intuitively extended his flipper behind him to keep Kowalski from stepping closer, as if the danger of whatever had happened there was still present. Then he turned around and hastily ushered him out of the room.

They kept waddling along the corridor, faster than before.

Kowalski cleared his throat. "Um, so, what do you… what do you think this is about?" he asked then, voice raspy. Skipper was quiet for a while.

"I have no idea," he answered then, "But it seems this is how Hoboken shows its true colors to us. I –." He fell quiet as they suddenly heard human voices. They had now almost reached the end of the corridor; the last room to the right had a little square window in the upper part of the door through which a vague light was falling out into the corridor. Skipper indicated to Kowalski to give him a leg up so he could look through it. "Lift me."

His second-in-command devoted all his energy to doing so, and Skipper was able to see what was going on inside the room. There were humans inside - two physicians, a heart specialist, and a nurse, as he knew from overhearing their conversation –; they stood gathered around the cage of an armadillo boy, obviously examining him.

The heart specialist seemed like a man of action. He dominated the scene, barking orders that were immediately carried out.

"…Don't know, don't know," he mumbled, "Bad, bad! Dr. Grady won't be pleased with this, not at all. Let's see, hmmm… no, that ain't good. Now, about this one…"

They worked on, the physicians anticipating his requests in advance. What they did seemed nothing new to them; they worked together as a well-oiled machine. The young armadillo was taken out of the cage, made comfortable on the operation table and then gently, oh so gently, given some green liquid intravenously, and – Hoover Dam, Skipper never wanted to be a party to anything like this again.

As soon as the boy lay back on the table, his body started to writhe and shake. His arms and legs began to spasm as his neck was wrenched from side to side. A cry escaped his lips, and then another, louder, and another. – And his eyes! Skipper dared hardly look – the irises clouded until they were as yellow as butter. The whites of them – bloodshot. The pupil shrank away to almost nothing. And, finally, his voice – his screams, first muffled, then guttural and harsh, and then no more. Then he fell into what seemed unconsciousness – the kindest state to him. But the humans weren't done yet.

"Block that artery off!" the heart specialist cursed, "Block it off, now! Quickly, quickly! We're losing it… Hurry up! Give me that clamp! Hold this here, hold it tight, there, that's right! Hmm… good. Good! Okay, let's release it! Now for the other one. Quick now, let's hurry… that's it!"

And then they gave the armadillo another shot. He rose up again, his unearthly cry ripping through the air – one more shot, and his weakened body folded up and he collapsed. They carried him off the operation table. When he finally awoke again in great pain, he spoke of murderers and killers… just like Hans had before.

Skipper leapt off Kowalski's folded flippers. His face was ash pale as he said, "Let's go. Now!"

Kowalski gave his leader a quizzical look. "What did you see in there?" he asked.

Skipper opened his beak to answer, then closed it again and leaned back against the wall. He realized he was trembling. Kowalski stepped closer to him. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I am. I… they… they were… torturing a guy in there." Skipper tried hard to keep his voice steady. _Pull yourself together,_ he admonished himself; he was the skipper, he was never afraid. This was enough to shock him but not to scare him.

"Oh." Kowalski's face fell. Then he got into battle stance. "Shouldn't we run in and save him?!"

"No. No, it's too late for that." Skipper steadied himself after all and then quickly made up his mind. "– Listen, I can't tell you yet how, but you've got to make it without Clemson somehow. I'm sorry about this but we won't risk _that_ much to save him. All I am convinced of right now is that we need to get away from here ASAP, that it was a huge mistake to come here at all, and that we can be glad if we make it out of here alive! – So let's find Rico and Private and then flee from this hellhole while we still can!"

* * *

Meanwhile the uninvolved part of the group stayed back at the lemur habitat.

The two younger lemurs started to become more and more anxious because the penguins were gone for so long; and then Clemson was present, too, well separated from them on the other side of the trench though. While he didn't seem particularly up to anything suspicious – he had withdrawn into a corner of the cave to recover from Clover's operation and was now resting there on an old couch, whose springs were flowering through the rotting cushions – his presence didn't really help to calm them down.

Clover tried to read Kowalski's construction plans for the back part of the helicopter but failed to understand them due to insufficient technical knowledge and then got badly annoyed with Mort, whom she'd asked to help her, as he didn't take anything she said or did or want seriously and rather ran around panicking and chasing his own tail and bewailing the situation loudly. Before she could lose her nerve, Clover went back to the storeroom for a while and Maurice suggested that the two younger ones should go out and play a little for relaxation while he would prepare them some mangos for dinner. Julien and Mort agreed eagerly, and Maurice, too, was happy at the prospect of being left in peace for the next half an hour.

"You two can play in the yard of the lemur habitat, but please stay right there. _Do not_ go out of the habitat in any case!" he warned them while he pulled a woolen cap over Mort's head and wrapped a scarf around Julien's neck to protect them from the cold outside, "This place is very dangerous, even more now that the penguins aren't here. If anyone of the Hobokeners comes to see you, do not talk to them or go close to them. And if you feel there's anything strange or frightening to you, come back in here immediately!"

"Yes, yes," Julien mumbled into his scarf, and Mort nodded, too.

"Please listen to me. I mean what I say. I don't want you two to get yourselves into any danger."

Mort nodded again with a very serious face, and Julien drew closer to his adviser. Maurice embraced him and looked deep into his eyes.

"Your Majesty… Julien, please take care of yourself!"

Julien grabbed his paw and squeezed it in his. "Yes, Momo."

Then he embraced him again, this time a little longer, and Maurice ran his paws through Julien's fur, gently weaving his fingers through the silky silver strands. When he finally let him go, Julien looked at him with sparkling eyes for a moment longer, and then they left.

Maurice watched them leap outside into the yard, their joyful voices distant now; then his gaze fell into the corner of the cave again, and he was surprised to see that terrible lemur wide awake now and sitting up on the couch.

"Do you love him?" Clemson asked when the other lemur's gaze caught his.

The question caught Maurice off guard. "What?"

"Are you in love with Julien?"

Maurice looked down at his feet, slightly embarrassed. "You mean, like…? Well, I… We… we're not dating or something." Why would he tell Clemson anyway?!

"But you wouldn't mind if he asked you out, would you."

"That's none of your business!" the older lemur spat.

"That means you are in love with him. And so is he, with you." Clemson swung his feet off the couch so he sat facing Maurice. His lips twisted in a joyless grin. "Are you too blind or too ashamed to admit that you're the one he cares for most?"

Maurice crossed his arms in front of his chest, looking back at him. "You know, I really wonder why you harbor so much against him. He hasn't done anything to you, anything at all; yet from the day you met him you seemed to hate him so thoroughly. Why?!"

"Well, _I_ wonder why it's _you_ who's asking me this! In fact, I've been asking myself that all along, and I suppose so have others." Clemson got up and walked towards him, seeming quite well again. But then he steadied himself against one of the vertical spires that held the barbed wire and placed his paw down on the top wire, between barbs.

"You're the one closest to him… no doubt, the servant most duties weigh upon. And yet you're so incredibly devoted to him, beyond any reason or merit. You know, when we met in your zoo for the first time, you seemed annoyed enough already. How could you stand it all these years?! Can't you see how you're wasting your life, every single day of it – serving and running after someone you could outsmart so easily? Doing everything for someone as narrow-minded as him? – When deep down you always know you could be so much more, but you can't ever realize your dreams because you're subject to that damn little narcissist!"

He gazed straightly at Maurice now, green eyes flickering with unconcealed fury.

The older lemur just shook his head. "You don't understand. I don't feel this way about my duties or my place in the lemur kingdom, and I don't share your rejection the tiniest bit. Of course we're having our quarrels from time to time, and of course it's sometimes annoying I have to do things his way although I'm the one who actually knows things better." – Clemson had settled against the spire, listening intently. – "But what's the big deal? I see no point in insisting on being the one who's right, and perhaps we do things a little more complicated or need more time, but in the end we've always worked things out well together. What matters most to me is that Julien stays the kind of king he is – loving, joyful, in synch with the groove of his people. – Look at them," Maurice said to him almost gently now, pointing at a gap in the cave wall through where they could see Julien and Mort laugh and play outside in the bright red foliage, "Look at them playing so happily together. Isn't this sight enough to fill your every part with nothing but peace and love?"

But Clemson just bristled at the sight of them, resentment flashing in his eyes.

"This means nothing to me, nothing at all! The joyfulness you see in Julien's eyes is hiding ignorance and incapability, and the love he bears in his heart is love for himself only. And yet he's holding all the glory that could be mine! When I look at him, all I see is a childish, grossly naïve, egoistic fool preening and prancing and wearing a crown he doesn't deserve, while the best thing that could happen to him would be to get buried six feet under!" His voice had risen to an almost strident pitch, and he was trembling with anger. There was hatred burning in his eyes now, ugly, dark hatred, with an intensity that scared Maurice. Yet he clenched his paws into fists, ready to yell at him not to talk about Julien in this way, but then he didn't.

"He may be naïve, he may be childish – but at least he isn't a threat to anyone!" he just hissed at Clemson, "– Like you'd be, if you were king. You wouldn't rule the lemur kingdom in a way that'd make everyone happy; I bet you'd rule it with tyranny, and in the end the only one who's happy would be you! So much for being egoistic… So this is why I'd never support a king like you!"

Clemson was silent for a minute. "If I were king, I'd make sure I wouldn't _need_ any support from someone like you," he replied, an icy smile crossing his face. His rage had turned cold and calculating. "And no matter if I can become king at last or not – I won't _ever_ worship Julien, not as long as I live!"

With these words he turned to rush out of the cave, leaving Maurice back on his own.


	8. Chapter 7 - Murder in the Morgue

**A/N** : _...My most profound thanks also to you guys who reviewed as guests. Your kind words really mean a lot to me. Snowy greetings and warm hugs to you!_

* * *

CHAPTER 7

 **MURDER IN THE MORGUE**

Rico and Private stood motionless, close to each other, as the elevator rose, gathering speed. Its engine sounded excessively noisy against the quiet background.

Then it came to a stop and the doors opened unto a dark corridor. As they carefully stepped out, some dim white lights above them came on.

They'd come up at the end of the corridor, and there was a staircase right next to them. They wanted to enter it, but it appeared that the stairs were blocked at the top as something was right in front of the double door leading inside. They pushed against the door wings but couldn't move them even with all their strength united.

Through the glass panels in the upper part of the door wings they could see it was a large wooden storage cabinet that had been shoved in front of the doors from the other side.

Rico growled and then smashed one of the glass panels with his flipper. They still weren't able to move the cabinet, but they could reach one of its drawers now; it contained a small locked safe.

Private took it out but had no luck on trying to unlock it. "It's not opening. It's screwed tight; I can't open it bare-flippered!"

Rico hacked up a crowbar, jammed it into the lock, and prized it open. Inside they found a single tool. Rico muttered something to the younger penguin.

"Indeed, I believe it's a pipe wrench." – Private had seen one before in Kowalski's tool kit and thought this one looked similar. – "And it's quite a big one. Keep it. We might need it for something."

Rico nodded and then swallowed the wrench.

They waddled past a couple of wards. The doors to them were all closed; only one of them stood ajar. Rico flinched a little when they came past it; he thought he'd heard a sound from inside the room. He stopped to listen closely for a moment – a muffled voice.

Someone was in there! Maybe the lemur they were looking for? Private had waddled a few steps ahead already, but now he stopped and turned back around. "Are you coming, Rico?"

The rogue penguin grumbled a response.

Private hurried back to him. "Really? What… what _exactly_ did you hear?!"

Rico growled again, a mixture of slurred guttural sounds. This time Private became very uneasy about his reply. "You really want to go in there?! Are you sure…? Alright, then… then I'll stand guard out here in case any humans come along. Is that okay?"

Rico nodded and patted the rookie's head. Then he carefully squeezed himself through the crack in the door. The ward was silent, bathed in a cold white light. The entire room smelled of blood and doom. All of the walls were tiled to the ceiling like in a bathroom, and there were a dozen of white zinc bathtubs too, lined up next to each other along the wall to the right. They were filled with a clear, colorless liquid which at first sight looked like water, but Rico knew this pungent odor… sulfuric acid. He stared at them without understanding, his perplexed gaze wandering slowly across the room. At the end of the row one bathtub was standing in an odd angle to the others. There was something red at its base – a pool of fresh red blood forming on the tiled floor…

Rico stepped closer as if in a trance. The bare bulbs behind him sent a long, distorted shadow across the tub. A big white bedsheet was spread out inside it, but at one end it was pulled back a little...

Just enough so he could see that something – _someone_ – was lying in there.

Rico felt his heart crawl up into the middle of his throat and freeze there solid.

Yet he stepped closer. His eyes followed the thin streaks of thick red liquid up the white porcelain until –

Dangling over the white edge of the tub, was a paw. Limp. A small rivulet of blood trickled down one of the fingers, dripping onto the tiles from the sharp claw –

Without thinking of what he was doing, Rico yanked the sheet away.

In the tub lay the motionless body of a porcupine.

His mutilated, eyeless face stared up at Rico. His body was corroding in the acid he was bathing in; there were no more spikes on his back. His left arm had been completely severed at the shoulder; into the right one three huge nails had been driven, one at the wrist, one at the elbow, and another into the muscle of the biceps. A large quantity of the acid had also been dashed into his face. It was spread over the whole right half of his head, from the snout to the nape of the neck. Skin had sloughed there in furry layers, leaving half of his face and scalp to become an ulcerated surface, thick patches of mortified parts falling off in a putrid mass.

Both eyes were gone, but he could feel that Rico was there – his lipless jaws were still moving, grinding, forming a single, soundless word: _"Help."_

This effort seemed to rob him of his last strength – he was breathing hard then, once, twice, and after the third breath there was no more.

Silence.

Rico watched blood and acid mingle as the reddened mixture snaked down the drain in a sickening spiral, horror sinking to the marrow of his bones.

Then –

A piercing scream from outside. "Rico! Rico! Come quickly!"

He tore his gaze away from the dead porcupine and ran. He ran, but the door was closed. He knew it had been ajar before, but now it was closed.

He banged his flipper against it with all his power.

"Open up!" he growled, his voice shaking.

"I can't!" Private's voice outside was very close, pitched into a whine. "The door fell closed! I can't reach the handle; I'm too small! And – and someone's coming from the lower levels – I can hear the elevator go, oh gosh, Rico, what shall I do?!"

Rico didn't answer. He was scared. For one of the very few times in his life he was scared to death, for the porcupine in the tub, for himself, for Private, for all of them. He grabbed his crowbar again and braced himself against it until the doorframe finally split with a cracking noise. While he was still struggling to get through the broken wood, he could see the pulsating red light out on the corridor indicating that the elevator had arrived.

Two shadowed figures threaded softly through the opening doors –

Private buried his face in his flippers as he started to scream and couldn't stop.

– And then a familiar figure emerged from the darkness, and warm flippers wrapped him in a tight embrace and held him, held him hard.

"Easy, lad, easy!" Skipper pulled the scared rookie close. "It's just us. We've come to fetch you guys because I decided to abort the operation. Apparently, continuing this mission could pose serious danger to our lives, so let's get out of here."

"Oh, Skipper, Skipper!" Private buried his face into his leader's shoulder, sobbing. "Rico was stuck in that room, and I… I thought you were humans who were coming for us… This place is so dark and scary!"

Skipper consolingly rubbed his back, feeling a twinge of guilt. He shouldn't have commandeered Private for this mission! The rookie was strong and apt for his age, but there were just things his young eyes shouldn't see yet… This was no place for him to go. Terrifying things were lurking in here, things little penguins shouldn't know about. Little penguins should be thinking about Lunacorns and snow cones, not dark places filled with the stench of blood and dead bodies.

"What about that room?" Kowalski meanwhile asked Rico as he helped him out of the hole he had broken into the door; other than that it was still intact, however, hiding the atrocities inside from the other penguins' eyes.

Rico flinched a little, but then he just shrugged. "Dunno."

Kowalski looked at him curiously. "Have you seen anything in there, Rico?"

"No," he grunted. "Nothin'."

Now Skipper was looking at him, too.

"Nothing," he muttered again, his voice firm. Skipper opened his beak as if to say something but the words froze in his throat. All of a sudden, a noise coming from nearby made them jump – the high-pitched sound of a small electric motor.

All four of them exchanged terrified looks as they could hear it growing louder. Searing. Aggressive. Then another sound… human voices. Enraged.

Fast, heavy steps tripping down stairs – someone was coming for them.

Private gave another small, heart-rending whimper, clutching at Skipper again so tightly it hurt. Before the leader could order a hasty retreat, a light flashed up behind the blocked double door.

Then, with a screeching of torn metal, sparks flew across the darkness.

There was a loud bang when the cabinet was turned over, and the glass panels shattered.

And then a terrible creature jumped out of the darkness towards them. It had red, glowing eyes… and the shape of a lemur who was quite familiar to them. At first sight it seemed as if his fur was on fire. But as he approached them, they saw wires sticking out of it, spitting blue sparks and whipping all around him, leaving circles of neon blue in the darkness. Little bits of electricity bounced around his head, almost like an evil halo. In his paws he was holding a huge chainsaw, its blade smeared with black, clotted blood. It sprayed all around as he let the blade spin and cried at the top of his lungs, "MURDER!"

For a moment the boys were too shocked to say or do anything.

"Clemson!" Skipper then called out in great surprise, "The evil lemur has gone loco!"

Intuitively he spread his flippers to shelter his men, who were huddling up behind him. Rico was about to hack up his own chainsaw and challenge him to a duel, but as the red lemur came to a halt before them and turned his chainsaw off, Skipper signaled him not to.

"I am not Clemson," said the red lemur, "This username belongs to a different file." – Confused silence. – "And whoever you are, if your lives mean anything to you, you better get ready to _run like hell!_ Ha, ha, ha!" – His wild laughter echoed through the dark corridors as he yanked on the cord, and the chainsaw was buzzing away again as he fled the place, using his powerful tool to break and maim everything in his way. The penguins stared after him.

A second later the corridor lights flickered on over their heads, and three human doctors stood in the frame of the broken double door, blood splattered all over their white gowns.

"Penguins," said the first one, looking down on the four of them intently, "How did they get in here? I didn't know we had any, actually."

"We better don't take them," said the second one, who was holding a meat hook in one hand, "They're cute and cuddly, and all children love them."

"There are other cute and cuddly animals, too, and Dr. Grady is angry enough that the lemur ran off in the middle of the examination," said the third one, "So let's take our chance."

"Hit the deck!" Skipper yelled, and the next moment all four penguins were belly-sliding as fast as they could.

Doors flashed past them in a blur as they followed the line of destruction the red lemur had left – they had no idea where they were going, aside from fleeing for dear life.

They belly-slid along the hallway until they reached another stairwell. The red lemur must've gotten up to the roof! As they followed him there leaping up the stairs two flights up, they heard muffled voices of the human doctors echo down the hall they'd just left. The stairwell door had snapped shut behind them noisily – the doctors must've surely noticed it.

When they finally reached the roof exit, they still heard voices and feet bounding up the stairwell behind them; they hurried out onto the roof, cold air suddenly engulfing their faces. Skipper glanced around wildly and spotted the red lemur right on the roof ledge, standing there wielding his chainsaw and wailing, "Murder! Murder! Murder!" – As he made such a noise, a crowd of animals had gathered down there, looking up to them.

"What're you doing," Skipper hissed at him, "We need to get away!"

But the red lemur ignored him. "Listen to me, you blind fools!" he called down to the animals assembled there, "You all know that Alchimus isn't a hospital. Hospital! – That's a murderer's lash of sarcasm – because you know that it's really a _morgue!_ – A torture chamber where they hand-cut and sew animals like garments. – Needles and sutures. – All the pain! Red wires, green wires, they stick them right through you. – Needles and sutures – oh, the terrible pain! They electrify you, hammer nails into you, put pieces of wire down your throat until you choke. They saw your bones to pieces with tools like this!" – He let the chainsaw roar up loudly, and the animals below him shrieked with fear at the sight of it.

"And yet you stand here blindly believing in that lying motherfucker Savio. Will it feed your hunger to swallow lies right down your throats – or will it choke you till you're raw?! You fools live in a false pink paradise, thinking if you only pay him enough, he can save you! – But he can't! He can't! I can prove you right here that no matter whether you join his game or not, the tables will turn against you in the end – sooner or later you're all going to be strapped on the table, the operation begins, and then you'll feed the killing machine of these humans! And it is a hungry machine; it needs your lives, all of yours! – The proof? – Here you go!"

Before their widened eyes he pulled something up he'd brought along from the operating room – a severed beaver's head he held up high to the gaze of the terrified crowd.

"This beaver woman is my witness! She was there in the surgery with me. And look what she was wearing – a dozen of pink ribbons in her hair!" – He plucked them from the strands of brown fur he had gripped her head by and tossed them down to the other animals.

"You can buy as much pink from Savio as you want to, you can starve and still waste your last fruit to pay him – he can't save you! In the end Charlie will always have his way with you and make you scream for the killing machine down there in his morgue!"

He curled the beaver's head into the nook of his arm, then slid his index and middle finger into the eye sockets and his thumb up one of the nostrils and held the head in front of him with both paws, as if aiming a bowling ball. He took three quick steps towards the very edge of the roof and then tossed the head over it, down into the crowd, splattering blood.

A horrible scream ripped through the rows of animals. The crowd broke apart, the animals gathered there bolting in all directions. Screams scattered across the empty visitor paths as they ran helter-skelter. They were shouting, throbbing with terror, scared to death by what they'd seen, and robbed of their last hope for survival.

"Good heavens! Clemson has gone crazy! Look at that chainsaw!"

"We're doomed! _Doomed!_ "

"No one's going to save us now… we'll all just die here!"

Above them stood the red lemur, watching them panic, roaring with laughter at their weakness.

The penguins stared at him. Private fainted into Rico's flippers, and Kowalski looked as if he was trying hard not to vomit. Only Skipper stepped up to the mad lemur after all.

"What on earth has gotten into you, Clemson!" he ranted at him, "I knew you were insane, but this is just disgusting, it's really barbaric over the top! Now, for pity's sake, stop that ridiculous horror show, will you – we need to get out of this place!"

The red lemur gazed at him, his red eyes narrowing. "I told you I am _not_ Clemson! I am –."

Just then the exit door next to them exploded. Humans shouted as they raced out on the roof. "There they are. Get them!"

"Oh, heck," said the red lemur – and then jumped right off the ledge. His body raced past several floors, and Skipper grimaced, expecting him to crash into the asphalt with a chorus of cracking bones. But he didn't; he fell flat on his face but then just got up again and looked up to them to see whether they'd follow him. Skipper stood gaping in slack-jawed awe; he didn't know any animal who could take a 40-foot freefall without any injuries.

"Retreat. Hurry!" he ordered. Rico hacked up a rappelling device. He anchored the line to a steel frame on the roof ledge while Skipper snapped the belt around his waist and ran the other end of the line through the pulley device on the belt and through the braking unit. His brothers clung closely to him, and they rappelled off the ledge before the doctors could reach them. Seconds later, they slowed, and Skipper's webbed feet hit the solid asphalt. He disengaged the rappelling device, and the red lemur skated off across the place leading them back to the lemur habitat. Together they huddled behind the brush-covered fence. Flashlight beams cut through the darkness behind them, but it seemed the humans had lost their trace.

"Guys!" A moment later the rest of the group came running out of the cave towards them to greet the penguins.

"For the Sky Spirits' sake, where have you been?!" Maurice asked, "We've been looking for you all day!"

"We've been waiting at the puffin habitat, but you weren't there," Julien explained, "We were afraid something could've happened to you!"

"Well, your worry sure was justified!" Private whimpered; he still needed time to recover from his swoon. "– Terrible. It was _terrible!_ "

"We were looking for Clemson. We saw some humans take him to that Animal Care Building and wanted to bring him back," Skipper tried to clarify the matter, "Because after we saw what had happened to Hans –."

"For Clemson? Why?! He was here all along!"

Clover had grabbed him by the uninjured wrist and was dragging him out of the cave behind her. Clemson seemed uncomfortable seeing all of them assembled, but when he realized who was with the penguins, a genuine smile lit up his face.

"Mea…!" He stepped up to the android and wanted to embrace him but then didn't dare to as he was so damaged. Loose wires were dangling and swinging all around him, and every time the multicolored knots made contact, they threw off more sparks. If Clemson touched him now, he probably risked giving himself a massive electric shock.

"Hey." The android smiled back at him – and then proudly showed him what he'd brought along from the hospital. "Look what I got!"

He probably expected his maker to be pleased with it, but Clemson's face went pale at the sight of the chainsaw. "Oh, good heavens! That's –!"

"Charlie's chainsaw!" Mea exclaimed happily, "I stole it from him when he tried to operate on me, and now he can't use it anymore. Now he isn't 'Chainsaw' Charlie any longer! Now _we_ have got it – and that's one mighty tool at our disposal, isn't it!"

Paralyzed, Clemson stared at the instrument of torture that had injured him so grievously, whose sound haunted him in his dreams. Seeing it up close now scared him more than he'd ever admit, but for some reason he wouldn't tell Mea about it.

"You look terrible," he said instead, "We should get these wires fixed."

"Oh, it's alright. But my battery is pretty low; I should recharge soon. – Now what the hell are all these strange guys doing in our habitat?! Don't they have somewhere else they can go!"

The rest of the group was watching them both closely, their eyes flicking back and forth between them. Their confusion revealed it was nearly impossible for them to tell the two red lemurs apart. Mea was a little taller since he was on roller-skates, and then his damaged state betrayed him as it revealed his synthetic innards, but apart from that they looked exactly the same.

"Explanation. Right now, Mister," Skipper then hissed at the one who he believed was Clemson, and this time his guess was correct.

The red lemur and his android double looked at each other. "Hey," Mea whispered into his maker's ear, "They're just as stupid as those humans. They mistook me for you!"

Clemson grinned broadly at that, but then his expression turned serious again.

"So," he introduced his greatest and dearest invention to the others, "This is Mea."

The three New York lemurs and their bodyguard huddled. " _That's_ the corpse on the gurney Clemson was butchering before…?" Julien whispered to Maurice.

The older lemur nodded. "I guess so."

"It's not a corpse actually, Your Majesty," Clover explained, "It's a machine."

Maurice frowned. "Anyway, I liked it better when it was still dead. Switched off, I mean. And not running around with a chainsaw!"

"It looks like Clemson," Mort whispered, "So it's evil. Like him!"

"Holy Sky Spirits, there are _two_ Clemsons now," Julien whispered, terrified.

"So you're Frankie's monster," Skipper greeted the android – and then he finally realized their mistake. "Wait, that means… that means it was all for nothing, and we wouldn't have needed to break into that hell house at all?! We… we thought it was _you_ who was taken captive, Clemson. But then we risked our lives… for a _robot!_ "

Now the red lemurs put their heads together and laughed at the penguins with unconcealed scorn. Clemson clasped his paws together with feigned gratitude.

"Why, I'm flattered you wanted to save me, Skipper!"

Before the penguin leader could burst out furiously at him, Kowalski stepped ahead to stare at the android with wide eyes. Then he scrutinized him closely by viewing him through a magnifying glass. "Wow. So he _does_ work after all!"

"Obviously," Mea huffed at him, recoiling a bit from the penguin's prying eyes.

"To be honest, I was never completely sure if he'd be able to reactivate," Kowalski said to Clemson, "He was really badly damaged."

While Kowalski hadn't seemed too impressed with his invention before, he sure was now. "– A roller-skating, chainsaw-wielding, artificial lemur? That's brilliant! You may have a future in science, my furred friend."

"Oh, you think so? Why, thank you." Clemson's eyes brimmed with pride.

"Kowalski…!" Skipper moaned.

"What? Come on, from a purely technical point of view, this android is a masterpiece!" – He inspected Mea's roller-skates and nodded to Clemson once more – "I see. So _this_ is how you solved his problem of not being able to walk. Fascinating! Simply fascinating!"

Ignoring his leader's skeptical look, Kowalski shook the artificial lemur's paw.

"Uh, Mr. Mea… Would you mind if I took a look at your registry later on? I don't mean to be a bother, but it would be magnificent for my studies if –."

The android stared at him, red eyes sparkling with annoyance. "Negative. The only one allowed to access my registry is my maker."

"Fascinating," Kowalski repeated, taking a note on his clipboard. "Just like a real lemur."

Mea slapped the clipboard out of Kowalski's flipper, obviously tired of being examined like this. "Well, I can let my _fist_ show you how real I am, Mister!"

"Now take it easy!" Skipper stepped between them before things could escalate. "You can disassemble the robot later, Kowalski. Now – would you guys _please_ mind telling us what is going on here?!" – He fixed a sharp gaze on Clemson. – "And you'd better not lie now."

Clemson looked at his android as if seeking his reassurance. Then he sighed. "Alright. – But let's go inside; it doesn't feel safe here."

The group began moving towards the cave; they were walking close to each other, and Julien's tail accidentally brushed Clemson's. The red lemur turned his face in Julien's direction and gave him a look no one saw. _I'll get you yet_ , said that look. _No matter how much I had to go through, if I can have my fun with you again in the end, it was all worth it_.

Julien almost gasped aloud and hurried away from him _as fast and as far as possible_ , to the back of the group, where Maurice was.

When they were all united inside the cave, they sat huddled close to one another around a flickering kerosene lamp, and Clemson began telling them what had happened in the Hoboken Zoo ever since Frances Alberta was gone and Charles Grady had taken over.

"…So you've just witnessed yourselves what the Alchimus Hospital is like: a place where Charlie, our new zookeeper, and his team of doctors secretly conduct cruel animal experiments on us zoo residents. And that was really the only reason for him to build this hospital – ironically called 'Animal Care Building' – when he came here: to conceal his lies to the public, so he won't get sued for animal abuse. Because that happened once before when some of the horrible results leaked out anyway, but he was able to blame it all on Frances' former crimes, so he's fully back on the job now. We have no idea what he's actually trying to achieve. It appears he's looking for a special biological result, some kind of precise knowledge that can only be gained by vivisecting animals. None of us knows what it is, though; except for Savio, maybe. But it doesn't seem to matter for his studies what kind of animal it is that he gets to examine."

Kowalski noted down everything he said in his _Book of Mad Zookeeper Conspiracies._

"So actually, all of us would have an equal chance of either being chosen for torture, or of escaping unscathed whenever he or his doctors come to pick one of us. But there's another variable in this equation: Zookeeper Charlie has a little daughter, Lily, who he asks every other day which animal of the zoo she likes least. This animal is the one he will pick for his next experiment then because he knows his daughter likes the zoo and thinks she won't miss it. In other words, the decision about life or death is all Lily Grady's. – Now Savio happened to find out that Lily loves pink, so naturally everyone around here started to go crazy on all kinds of pink accessories because by appearing 'cuter' to Lily they hope to be favored by her and therefore be less likely picked as 'the one she likes least', meaning the one who will be chosen for torture by her father. – So, this is the reason why we all wear these pink atrocities." Clemson clipped a barrette into his hair and gave a second one to his android.

"And of course you couldn't have mentioned that earlier to us!" Skipper growled at them.

The red lemurs shared a grin that was meant only for the two of them, but the penguin leader noticed it anyway. He frowned darkly.

"Well, as Mea proved so rightly up there on that roof, this pink bizarreness won't always do the trick, unfortunately," Clemson hurried to downplay his cruel intentions, "But I still recommend you find yourselves some because the chances for survival are definitely higher then. Little Miss Grady is daddy's girl from pink bonnet to pink shoes, and her daddy sure has a lot of influence around here."

Skipper shook his head. "Cruel enough to have your lives depend on _that_."

"Yes. That's what Hoboken is like; this place is hell, and the zookeepers here are all monsters, no matter which of them. After Frances Alberta we were looking forward so very much to someone nicer, but it just won't happen here. Instead it even got worse, much, much worse. Instead of gilded habitats, massage chairs, and cheese fountains we're dealing with pliers, needles, and chainsaws now! – The result is the same: annihilation of any living being in this zoo." – Clemson's words were followed by a short silence. – "It's not nice, actually," he added. "Why are there humans who treat animals in that way? After all, we haven't done anything to them."

Skipper's expression softened a little. "No, it's not nice at all," he concurred, and the others nodded, too. For one exceptional minute they were all united in silent agreement.

Julien and Maurice sat with their bushy tails intertwined, as far away from Clemson as possible with the little space there was, holding Mort between them.

"This… is horrible. Horrible!" Julien whispered, "That Charlie is too cruel, too mighty. He locked us up inside here, and he found ways to weaken us we couldn't have ever imagined. We won't ever make it out of here alive!" Maurice and Mort nodded; the three of them looked shocked and upset while Clover clenched her paws into fists without a trace of fear in her eyes, looking all the more grim and ready to protect them.

"But maybe, if all of you here in this zoo joined forces and worked together, you could force Charlie to treat you in a different way," Private suggested.

"Ha! Typical New York kiddie!" Clemson laughed, "Maybe in _your_ zoo things would work that way. But we're in Hoboken here. We play by different rules. You won't find anyone around here who'd be concerned for another's well-being; on the contrary. You save yourself by letting others suffer. You steal their pink stuff from them to increase your own chances of survival by lowering the others'; that's how we play here! And the game master is of course the one who rules this zoo… Savio. He's the only one around here who is actually quite happy with all of this."

Rico growled something.

"Right. That fiendish reptile must be out of his mind," Skipper agreed.

Clemson nodded. "Ever since Charles Grady took over, Savio's dominance over the other animals has grown way out of control. He's become a real tyrant. He claims the zoo's lost-and-found office, the place where we used to get the pink things human children lost from, for himself and forces the rest of the zoo to pay him for those protective accessories. And believe me, everyone who ever became Charlie's victim and survived it, gives their food and precious properties to him with full paws. You should see the snake habitat; that bastard indulges in luxury while the rest of us are starving. We payed him as much as we could; we just don't have anything else to give away, and yet he wants more." – He had everyone's undivided attention; the others were silent, staring at him with wide eyes.

"So some of us even started to 'sell' each other," he continued, "They promised Savio to force someone weaker than them to go into the hospital and thereby prolong the chances of survival of the other animals since Charlie won't come back so soon for new victims then. And Savio accepted this as a payment, probably because it makes him feel even more powerful. He absolutely loves his position. Nothing happens without his permission here. – Even if you managed to break through the barbed wire and all the other safety measures Charlie put into place on the walls around the zoo – Savio won't let you go because it'd diminish his power."

When he'd finished his explanation, a few seconds of silence followed. Then Skipper began to march up and down in front of the group in a typically military manner.

"Isn't that too big a risk to take for Savio? – The longer anyone stays here, the more likely he or she runs the risk to end up as one of Mr. Grady's victims, right? And apparently even the pink junk doesn't always help, so being rich on pink alone won't save him – who says _he_ won't be the next one who's chosen?"

"Oh, he never has to worry. In fact he's the only one in this zoo who can be hundred per cent sure not to be taken."

Skipper raised his eyebrows. "And how is that?"

Clemson sighed. "Snakes are Lily's favorite animals."

"Come on, tell me this isn't true!

"That maniac has all the luck in the world," Clover muttered, and the other three lemurs agreed. Clemson nodded, resigned.

"Savio is a mighty boa. Whatever you do, you better don't mess with him."

"Well, your cyborg doppelganger just successfully managed to antagonize him with his horror show there on the roof!" Skipper scoffed, pointing at the android, "And everyone heard it! Did you really have to do that?! Because I'm not exactly sure he's going to, um, take kindly to you calling him a –."

"Oh, don't make such a fuss about it," Mea growled, "Someone had to teach that guy a lesson!"

"No, he's right. That was completely unnecessary!" Clemson threw the android an irate look. "It's hard enough dealing with a foe like Charlie; we wouldn't have needed the crazy snake at our heels on top of that. Next time you better think again before you do such a thing."

Mea fell silent in an instant; by the confused look on his face one could tell his maker had never talked so harshly to him before.

"Apart from the fact that this was totally crude and barbaric," Kowalski added, "But well, maybe a machine like you can't understand that."

"Mind your own business!" Mea snapped at him, and now it was Skipper's task to calm things down.

"Now hold your horses, everyone! Apparently Hoboken has once again thrown at us all the evil it has in store – but losing our heads about it won't serve anything or anyone! It is the way it is, and if we want to make it out of here alive, we have to deal with it. If we want to cope with things, we need to think them through calmly and rationally."

He noticed with satisfaction that he had everyone's attention; all of the assembled around him listened in awe as he went on. Although fearful and uncertain, the group was clearly drawing courage from his words. What he said burned deep into their hearts; he saw that they were ready to fight for their lives.

"– We can still take this. We can rise again from these bowels of hell, but only as a united front. Nobody cracks. No one does anything stupid! Now we needn't all be friends to save our lives; but I think as long as we all agree on not backstabbing each other, not selling each other out to Savio and most of all, _not killing_ each other, we might actually be able to work this out." – He shot Clemson and Mea a sharp look, and the red lemurs nodded all too innocently. "Now, let's split up in two teams. Everyone who has an idea about techno stuff goes to work with Kowalski to care about our means of escape – and make sure neither Savio nor any of the others gets to know anything about that helicopter! –; the rest stays here and guards the place in case the humans show up again."

"Yes, Sir." Clover saluted. "On it!"

Skipper was pleased to see how eagerly she and the others followed his orders.

Only one of them stayed behind… his demolitions expert. "– You too, Rico, come on."

The rogue penguin said nothing. He was staring at the wall with a blank look as if he saw something there visible only to him. Absentmindedly, in a daze, his eyes wide and glassy, he murmured something to himself. Skipper stepped up to him.

"What's wrong, boy?"

Beak quivering, Rico turned to look at his leader. Then his face screwed into a pained look, and tears began trickling down his cheeks. "Hurt. So much hurt. Could not help. Dead."

His head fell against Skipper's shoulder, and he began to cry with horrible weakness, his flippers lying limp and spent in his lap.


	9. Chapter 8 - Gathering Shadows

CHAPTER 8

 **GATHERING SHADOWS**

"Um, Skipper… what are you doing?" Private watched his leader pull out a large sheet of paper and spread it out in front of himself. They were sitting on the flat roof of the storeroom, taking a break from doing more repair work on the helicopter. As soon as the paper was flat, Skipper took a pencil and began drawing squares in different sizes on it.

"Private, if you want to defeat an enemy, you first have to know what you're dealing with," he explained. "So, imagine this is the Alchimus Hospital, Zookeeper Charlie's fortress of torture. And now let's try to make some floor plans of the building; let's sketch where exactly inside it we've been: We went in _here_ " – He added another square. – "so the lobby must've been right _here_." – And another. – "Then, the examination room. Several wards. Doctor's office. Here, the elevator. We all took the elevator to the second floor; but what about that blocked staircase you and Rico saw? And when we got to the roof – how many flights did we run up? Two, right? Although by that time we were on the second floor already. And on the number pad on the elevator wall we could see that the building had no mezzanines."

"Wait, do you mean –."

Just then they were interrupted by Julien and Maurice, who came back from an investigation tour around the zoo to tell them with exactly how many enemies they'd have to deal with in case of a battle against all the Hoboken residents united.

"…I'm telling you, he's in love!" Julien was just excitedly telling his right-hand man, and as they came closer, Skipper and Private were following the conversation as well.

"Say what now?" Maurice asked confusedly.

"Clemson is in love! With his techno zombie!"

"You mean with the android he built? …Um, Your Majesty, are you sure you didn't get anything wrong about that?"

"Yes, I'm absolutely sure!"

Skipper blinked. "Really? How do you know?"

"Because I watched them before." Julien proudly presented him with a stack of paper filled with some crude drawings of all the Hoboken residents they'd checked on.

"Maurice and I have made a detailed list of enemies, just as you asked us to. And since I thought it would be wise to examine the greatest danger first, I secretly spied on Clemson, and that's how I noticed."

"Ha! That fits," said Maurice, "Because with whom else would someone like Clemson fall in love with but with himself?!"

But Skipper just rolled his eyes. "Oh, great. This doesn't make things easier."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, if your enemies team up like that, you can't use what has proven to be the most effective strategy, namely to set them against each other," he said in a tone as if to indicate that Maurice didn't know anything about generalship. "Plus, if this machine has an attractive effect on him, it means that it is without doubt very advanced. – Thank you, Kowalski!" he ironically added, directed to his second-in-command, who took a break now as well and was just coming up to join them.

"Ph. From a scientific point of view, that's a success," the tall penguin muttered.

"But Skipper, imagine that!" Julien insisted.

"I heard you. Now let me work!" The leader had applied himself to scribbling on the plans again. "One thing at a time, Ringtail. Give me a second to finish this."

"But he's in love with an _android…_ "

"Excuse me; I don't think that _this_ is what really matters." Skipper looked up again.

"My brother Rico has a plastic girlfriend and loses no opportunity to tell us what a dandy fine girl she is. Me, I've been happily married to a wooden hula dancer for several years now. There's really nothing wrong with Clemson's boyfriend being an android. – It's about his boyfriend being a full-tilt killing machine! – And how could you expect a machine to have any respect for life? You saw what it did to the body of that dead beaver woman – why would you think it'd treat us in a different way?! Apparently, Clemson didn't consider it necessary to program it in a way it would be able to distinguish between an object and a living being, or he just didn't know how to. And then there's its supernatural strength, which all those androids have, as they so clearly showed us back then when we battled Frances Alberta here. – Kowalski, you said you'd weaken it; then why did it get out of that torture prison without any harm while every other victim we saw in there was dead or at least about to die?!"

"Skipper, I _did_ weaken this android! Just as I said I would, I installed a resistor inside his energy core that prevents him from being able to use more than fifty per cent of his original strength." – Kowalski pensively chewed on his beak. – "But thinking about it now, he's indeed still quite strong… I admit that if we had him against us, this could turn into a dangerous business pretty soon. Huh, maybe I should've installed some sort of time fuse inside him…"

"That's a bit cruel, don't you think?" the youngest penguin interfered, "I mean, if Clemson is in love with him and –."

"Oh, Private!" Skipper moaned. "I know what these kinds of inventions are about! – Yes, I'm looking at you, Kowalski – and nooo, right now I'm not thinking about something that starts on 'J' and ends on 'iggles'! Your inventions have been a parade of disasters, jeopardizing us, our zoo, Manhattan and the entire world itself! You've _never_ invented anything that didn't threaten to destroy us in the end! – But I don't mind, because I know that I can trust you. – But how could I ever trust that lemur? Does Clemson even know what kind of powers he's trying to deal with?"

Kowalski shook his head. "Not really. He pretty much constructed that android by simply copying and applying all the relevant data Frances Alberta had already worked out. He showed me his own calculations; judging from those I'd say that if anything unexpected should occur, he won't have much of an idea what to do."

"That's exactly what I'm talking about! What if that thing goes haywire and runs amok?!" Skipper scolded, "Rico and I sure know what this is about. – You, too, lemurs."

"You're telling me!" Maurice muttered. "First, we had Clemson threatening us, and we barely got rid of him. Now we have… _two times_ Clemson, one even with techno super powers and a chainsaw! – I say one Clemson was bad enough already, but two are a real catastrophe!"

"Exactly! And that's why we should shut that thing down before –."

"And how exactly are we supposed to do that?" Kowalski objected, "We should've thought about that _before_ we decided to turn him back on. Because you do remember the first time we were here, don't you? The only thing that can probably kill an android is an overheated massage chair. And whatever hellhole the ever so pristine 'paradise of Hoboken' has turned into – you bet you won't find any of those here anymore."

"Maybe we worry in vain and Mea won't ever try to kill us," Private said, but nobody listened to him.

"You guys should've dealt with Clemson in a different way!" Maurice chided the two older penguins, "This deal sure wasn't to our advantage if it made us gain such a mighty enemy!"

"We probably shouldn't have tried to deal with someone like Clemson at all," said Julien.

Kowalski raised both eyebrows. "Well, how could we possibly have avoided it? If you guys know a different way how to get out of here, do tell! I recalculated a dozen times and still couldn't think of any! And remember that getting the android running was the only condition Clemson would agree to in exchange for helping us…"

"I can see it coming! It's just a matter of time until he will use this thing against us again. – Blast it!" Skipper cursed, "And we even went after it into that horror hospital! – If only Charlie had shredded this mad machine in there; then it wouldn't have been our fault it's gone, and Clemson would still have to help us."

He heaved a deep sigh and turned back to the paper in front of him.

– "Ah, Hoover Dam. We've made a mistake; we've got to live with it. Maybe, if we play nice, Clemson won't get the idea to attack us with it too soon. As long as he doesn't find out about Kowalski's trick, I don't think he'll do anything rash. He's too careful for that."

The tall penguin nodded. "I don't think he's clever enough to ever find out about that resistor… and even if he is, I can assure you it'll take him a while to do that."

Skipper nodded. "Good. So don't worry about this now; we'll find a way to put the android out of commission once we don't need Clemson's help anymore. – Now let's focus on this here."

"Yes! Can we help you with your picture?" Julien asked eagerly before he took a pencil and sat down next to Skipper; Mort had already begun scribbling dotted swirls and little butterflies on one edge of the paper that was yet empty.

"Um… No, thanks." Skipper quickly took the pencil away from Mort, who pouted at him. He exchanged a glance with his second-in-command; he could tell by the look on Kowalski's face that to him as well the two youngest lemurs proved most helpful if they just stayed out of the way for a while. "– Really, it's no big thing; I can handle this alone," he tried to utter this in a polite and less direct way, "You can just… go relax for a while, okay? You know, as much as this is possible in a place like this…"

"Really? Can we go play again then?" Mort asked.

Julien looked at Maurice. "Can we, Momo?"

The older lemur hesitated, but then nodded. "Alright. But please remember what I told you about the other residents of this zoo… and also, to _never_ go near that hospital."

* * *

Well provided with pink accessories, Julien and Mort then went to play again in the lemur habitat. In Clemson's cave they'd found a big beach ball with which they amused themselves for a while by playing a variety of different ballgames, making up new rules for each game as they went along.

"Here you go, buddy!" Julien gently tossed Mort the beach ball. "Pass it back to me!"

"Okay!" But instead of heading it right back to him, he cushioned it with his forehead with the first touch and then, with the second touch, took a big swing at it with his tail. The beach ball bounced off the habitat wall, went sailing a hundred feet over the fence and then dropped somewhere they couldn't see from where they were standing.

"Oopsie." The little mouse lemur watched it fly with a concerned look.

"Mort, you silly! What have you done?!" Julien scolded him, "We've lost the ball because of you! How are we going to play now?"

"Don't worry, King Julien, I'll get it back!" Mort promised and scurried out of the lemur habitat. He scuttled along the empty visitor paths, turning his head in every direction but finding no sign of it. "…Beach ball! Where are you, beach ball? Come back to me…!"

His young voice sounded lonely in the empty surroundings, echoing back to him from the high walls of the habitats around him. No Hobokener noticed him; they all must've withdrawn somewhere for shelter as it looked like rain. The breeze from before had increased and become a strong wind in the meantime, and the sky had begun clouding up, condensing quickly into gray clouds that swallowed the rest of the evening sunlight.

"Are you looking for something, little lemur?" a voice behind him suddenly asked.

Mort flinched and turned around to see a stranger stand a few feet away from him, looking down on him with sparkling golden eyes. He was a bird that resembled the penguins in physical appearance, but his beak was much more colorful than theirs; Mort believed he'd seen him some time before. He was certainly a Hobokener – _do not talk to them or go close to them!_ – Maurice's words clanged back threateningly in his mind, but then his regret about the loss prevailed.

"My ball! I can't find it!" he wailed, "It got lost because I threw it too hard, and now I can't find it! Oh, King Julien will be angry…!"

"I see. What color is your ball?" the stranger asked. When he spoke he had a faint accent but Mort couldn't tell what it sounded like.

"It's blue and white and, um… ladybug."

"Oh, really? Because I think I saw one like that just before."

"You did?" Mort called out joyfully, "Where was that?!"

The stranger extended his wing – Mort saw that it was clipped – and pointed right at the backside of the Alchimus Hospital. "It went over that fence, then bounced a few times across that backyard there, you see, and then went through that little ajar door into the building."

"Oh." Mort bit his lower lip, looking very worried. "I can't go there. I'll get big trouble."

The stranger cocked his head to one side. "But why?"

"Because… because Maurice told us not to."

"Why did he tell you that?"

"Because he said it's dangerous."

The stranger laughed. "Oh no, I don't think so." – Mort looked surprised. – "Maybe a little bit, because this building is a little big, isn't it. But your ball is surely right there in the room behind that door, so you just need to run in for a second, get it, and come out again. Real quick you go, then no one will see it, and you won't be in any danger."

"Mmh…" Mort thought about it.

He knew he'd been told that he must _never, under any circumstances_ , go near this building, and he had not thought of disobeying before; but just now this bird had told him it wouldn't be dangerous, and he didn't want his king to be mad at him because he hadn't gotten the ball back.

And if he hurried, Maurice wouldn't even notice anything at all.

"Come on, I'll help you over that fence; you'll have your pretty ball back in no time!"

Mort smiled. "Okay! But please don't tell Maurice."

"I won't. I promise. Come on, big guy, you can do it…!"

Mort nodded, convinced. He let the stranger take him into his flippers and lift him over the fence. Then he scampered inside the Alchimus Hospital as fast as his little feet would carry him.

* * *

Meanwhile the rest of the group was back in the storeroom.

Although the zoo was closed to the public at the moment and most of the animals were taking advantage of the human-free environment to hang around anywhere but in their own habitats, none of the Hobokeners seemed to become aware of them. Skipper had one of his men stand guard the entire time to make sure no one would enter the storeroom and see their getaway vehicle, but nobody seemed to suspect anything. They were able to work hard and efficiently, and they got a good amount of the repair work done.

However, after a couple of hours, they had to go on without Clemson's support. Along with the others he'd had to lift the heavy rotor blades of the helicopter many times before Kowalski was finally able to attach them to the root joints again.

This had taken a toll on him; the wound Clover had stitched before had opened again, and his injured paw throbbed with each beat of his heart. He tried to conceal it from the others by wrapping a leaf around his arm and tying it tight so it would stop the bleeding, but it soon became more and more saturated with blood, and his left arm became useless due to the blood loss. This was when the penguins noticed his working power was lacking, and Skipper sent him and Clover off for another operation.

They went back to the lemur habitat for this, where they were alone; Maurice and the penguins continued working in the storeroom and Mea was off to get them some mangos. When Clover was sitting down with him for the operation, they were talking about the android. "Is it true what they say?" she asked him quite unabashedly, "You love him? You're in love… with Mea?"

Clemson looked back at her, slightly flustered; he hadn't expected that question. She used his moment of confusion to lower the needle to the slit in his skin. He flinched but didn't make a sound.

"So what?!" he replied then, "He's done more for me than anyone else ever has."

As she brushed more of his fur back, his wrist was revealed still discolored and swollen. She pinched his skin together but before she started to stitch it, her eyes flicked up to him again, but he found them unreadable.

"This might be hard for you to see… but Mea isn't _real_ , you know."

He frowned. "You think I don't know that?!"

"Well, you can't be in love with a _machine_ , can you!"

"I can't? Well, I've heard that before. And I don't care about it! He has protected me so many times. You know how long this terror has been going around here? Without him I wouldn't be alive now!" After a pause, he added a little more softly, "And I'm convinced he loves me back."

Very carefully, she slid the needle in and out, and at the beginning he winced and grimaced with each stitch. "He can't love you back, Clemson. He's an android… a computer. Subject to the parameters of his RAM. A machine can't love… can't feel for that matter."

"He has emotions, and therefore he is able to understand them," Clemson contradicted.

"Does he? Or is he just imitating them because he's an artificial intelligence, an AI, which is only capable of learning by imitating everything? Think about it. Even if he manages to perfectly imitate reality… it's still imitated. He'll never be a real lemur… He'll never love you." She gave him a warning look. "You're forgetting he was actually created by your former zookeeper to destroy you and take your place! How can you be so sure that in the end he won't want to fulfill this purpose after all?"

"I reprogrammed him."

But Clover only shook her head at him. "You can't reprogram the very source of his existence: destruction!" She leaned forward and touched his shoulder. "Don't you see? He'll do you harm, Clemson. Compared to the average strength of a lemur, he's incredibly mighty already, and yet he strives to become even stronger, doesn't he. You mustn't let him! If you give him what he wants, he'll want more. And more. And more! Until you refuse, and then he'll stop using his powers to your advantage and turn his back on you... and maybe, as soon as he's become aware of the full extent of his powers, he'll even aspire to take over your place eventually."

She reached the end of the wound and finished stitching, tying off the thread just as Dr. S had showed her. As soon as she had done so, he pulled his paw away from hers.

"That's absurd!" His face flushed in anger. "You have no idea." He had resumed a mask of calm but inside him, her words had struck something cold. He didn't want her to sense his uneasiness and reluctance to discuss the matter.

"So Mea is your perfect golem, really?" she asked, her voice low but her eyes fierce. "You're convinced that you of all animals have managed to make a creature like this – a creature that is both superior to a living being, yet submissive to its maker, who is also a living being? And that he will always be like that, regardless of the fact that he'll want to get stronger and stronger – and yet you're not afraid that one day, if something goes wrong between you and him, you could watch him degenerate and turn back into what he actually is: a brutal, unthinking, low-tech killing machine?!"

He drew back from her, suddenly distraught. "Of course I'm not!" He clenched his freshly bandaged paw into a fist although it hurt. "This is ridiculous. You're just trying to scare me into believing what you want."

"Oh yes?" Clover gave a mirthless chuckle. "If one day he kills you, don't come to me and tell me I didn't warn you." With these words she got up and left the cave.

Clemson stared after her, his heart thumping loudly in his chest. His mouth had gone dry and sour, and his paws were still clenched into fists. _Ridiculous_. He'd been alone for barely a few minutes… then he heard the unmistakable sound of someone skating nearby.

Mea turned right around the corner. "Hey." – Upon seeing him now, Clemson flinched without meaning to. The android didn't fail to notice this.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

Clemson gave him a small smile, uncertain around the edges. "No, that's okay." _I'm not going to let her talk me into an issue that doesn't exist!_

Mea looked back the way Clover had left. Apparently he'd noticed that she'd been here with Clemson before. "What did she want?"

Clemson shook his head slightly. "Nothing. She just stitched me."

The android came closer and looked down on his bandaged paw. Not until he reached out to gently take it in his did Clemson see that in his other paw Mea was holding the chainsaw again; the silver blade was stained with blood, and it was fresh and running. "– I told you not to use that!" he cried out, slapping his paw away and drawing back from him.

"You didn't." Mea looked genuinely surprised. "What's wrong with it?"

Clemson just glared at him. He discovered he'd bitten his lip hard enough to almost make it bleed. The android put the chainsaw down.

"Alright, alright! I won't use it anymore if you don't want me to." He held his paws up in defense. "But you know I kind of had no choice! Of course Savio wouldn't give us the mangos you sent me to get for free – you know what he's like; he demanded one hell of a price for them. – So when I refused, he put all his allies in motion to stop me, and even with the help of this chainsaw I was just barely able to defeat them." He handed his maker a fruit box full of fresh mangos, and suddenly Clemson felt guilty for some reason.

"I don't know why but I got the feeling that ever since I reactivated, I haven't been as strong anymore as before," the android explained, "You know, like I was when you'd brought me to life for the first time. But now, ever since I was resurrected after that mad penguin had blown me up, it's been like I'm lacking a part of my strength… a big part!"

"Okay… I couldn't find anything when we were done fixing you, but let's ask Kowalski to check on you again," Clemson said, but it didn't sound too enthusiastic.

"Yeah, that'd be good. Because I need my old power back! Then we won't be dependent on them any longer; we'll sell them out to Savio and then we'll escape from here without their help. But to do that I need to be much stronger than I am now…!"

Clemson said nothing. He only drew a long, shivering sigh. A silence ensued between them; then Mea, looking at him, asked, "What's wrong with you?" He moved closer to him and this time Clemson didn't draw back from him, so he sat down beside him and placed one of his paws on both of Clemson's that he had folded in his lap. Clemson didn't withdraw his paws, so Mea held on to them firmly.

"Say, you and that lemur girl… were you talking about me?" – Clemson didn't answer. Mea took him lightly by the shoulders; he looked straight in his maker's face when he asked, "Wait, she didn't… tell you any weird things about me, did she?"

"What? No. No, no."

"What did she say to you?"

Clemson just shook his head. "Never mind."

* * *

"Mort?"

Julien peered over the wall of the lemur habitat to see where the little mouse lemur had gone. He'd been away for quite a while now; he wouldn't have ever believed it'd take him so long to bring the beach ball back! Had he known this in advance, he would've just asked him to play a different game. "Mort, where are you?"

Hesitating, Julien left the habitat and walked across the visitor paths, looking for him, but the little mouse lemur was nowhere in sight. A smattering of leaves occasionally scraped the path before him as they spun in a swirl. The rest of the group was still back at the storeroom; when he turned back, he could see there was light coming from the window, shining out into the gray evening. Dark clouds had gathered in the sky until there was no more blue. The first peals of thunder rumbled in the distance. He felt a slight shiver run down his back and wished he was back in there with them; he hoped he'd find Mort soon.

"Mort! Mort! Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

It seemed that there was no one around here; all that could be heard was the passing of wind and the leaves swaying in the trees. But then someone stepped out on the path towards him from behind a tree; he must've certainly heard him call. It wasn't Mort, though; he was one of the Hobokeners, of avian species, but no penguin.

" _Davs._ I mean, 'hello'." – He had a slight accent that sounded European. "Can I help you, my friend?"

Julien's first reaction was to withdraw a few steps. "Aren't you… aren't you the one the penguins share their habitat with?" He fearfully clutched his tail. "You're not… you're not going to hurt me, are you? Or try to steal my pink things from me?!"

The stranger laughed. "Why would I do that? I have enough of them myself!" – Indeed there was a surprising amount of pink ribbons attached to his shiny black plumage. – "I just heard you call for someone and thought you might need some assistance."

The lemur king began to trust him a bit more. "Yes, I'm looking for a small mouse lemur. Hazel fur, long, bushy tail. Do you happen to have seen him anywhere?"

To his surprise, the stranger nodded eagerly. "Indeed I have! He climbed over that fence over there and then went right through that back door into this big white building."

"What…? He went into the hospital?! But he mustn't! Maurice told us not to!"

"He said he was looking for a beach ball."

"But this is dangerous! So dangerous!" The lemur king shook his head anxiously.

"I know. I tried to convince him not to go there, but unfortunately I couldn't!"

Julien swallowed nervously. "I think I should tell the penguins."

"No, don't! – Don't go away now, I mean," the stranger said, "By the time you come back, it might already be too late! Because it was just a minute ago I saw your friend go in there; he can't have gone into the building very far. He might very well still be in that room right behind that little door. If we hurry, we can catch up with him and get him out again quickly and nothing will happen to any of us."

Julien bit his lips. He knew he had to decide quickly. Then he nodded.

"You're right," he said, "It'll be the best thing to do. Are you going to help me?"

"Yes, of course." The stranger's colorful beak turned into a smile, and Julien smiled back, feeling relieved about any help he could get.

They climbed over the fence into the backyard of the hospital and then hurried to the small rear entrance of the building. Julien was the first one to slip inside through the ajar door. The room behind it was darkened; he could hardly see anything, but he saw that Mort wasn't there. He was alone in the small room; the stranger hadn't followed him in.

As soon as he turned to look for him, the door behind him was thrown shut from outside.

* * *

"When are they coming back?" Maurice asked for the twentieth time, nervously pacing up and down between the tool boxes and electronic components scattered across the floor.

"Relax, Maurice," Skipper replied, his attention focused on his work at the broken helicopter dashboard rather than on the older lemur, also for the twentieth time. "I bet they'll be back soon."

Maurice bit his fingers absentmindedly as worry pricked at him. Soon. To him it'd been past _soon_ two hours ago already. It was starting to get late in the day, and then it had started to rain as well, but still Julien and Mort hadn't returned. Were they in trouble? Had something happened to them – anything –; who knew what was lurking in this terrible place, hovering in the shadows? Finally Maurice took his walking cane and left the storeroom to look for them. He should've never let them go anywhere alone in a place like this! He shook his head, trying to free his mind from the dark thoughts that kept invading.

"Julien! Mort! Where are you?" he yelled against the wind and rain wafting at him in light sprays. He could feel anxiety tightening in his chest as he stared out at the rain-darkened visitor paths ahead of him. There was no trace of them.

"Julien! Julien!" – No reply. – He struggled against a faint wave of panic which now began welling up in him.

"Hey!" an unfamiliar voice suddenly called back to him, "Why are you making such a noise down there?!" – Startled, Maurice looked up and saw a tall shadow atop one of the granite walls of a habitat. A huge walrus lady was angrily staring down at him.

"Excuse me. Have you seen two lemurs around here, a tall silver one and a little brown one?"

"Yeah. But that was a while ago already." She pointed her flipper towards the Alchimus Hospital. "They went both right this way and climbed over that fence into the backyard, first the little one and then the tall one. Hans the Puffin was with them."

"What…?!" Maurice stared up at her in stunned shock, a sudden hint of panic widening his eyes. Shaking her head, she gave a derisive laugh.

"My, my. Who would ever be so stupid?! But alright, if they want to throw their lives away so easily… guess it's an advantage for the rest of us if they run right into Charlie's arms like this, so why bother."

Maurice hardly heard her. Although every molecule in his body was screaming at him not to, he turned around and ran towards that perverse reversion of a hospital, shudder after shudder running down his back. Breathlessly he reached the backside of the building. A little rickety gate hung there at the fence and he pushed against it with his cane. It vibrated as he did so and finally flung open, giving him entrance to the backyard.

He stopped dead in his tracks.

Stared at the image greeting him.

His piercing, blood-curdling scream ripped through the inky blackness around him.


	10. Chapter 9 - Dark Floors

**A/N** : _My deepest thanks and gratitute also to the guests of course for their lovely words and encouragement. Sorry for having been away for a long time, I hope you guys are still around. Now let's turn the chessboard over one more time..._

* * *

CHAPTER 9

 **DARK FLOORS**

Kowalski was filing through the papers the lemurs had left them before they'd gone to play when Clover and his brothers suddenly heard him give a loud groan of annoyance.

"Oooh no! Bad place. Big trouble. Bad place. Big trouble!"

"What's the matter, Kowalski?"

"He's here!" the tall penguin cried out. Skipper looked up from his self-made plans which he was still pondering over intently.

"What? Who?"

"Parker!" Kowalski waved the list of enemies the lemurs had made at his leader. "Parker the Platypus! You remember him, don't you? Apparently he's a resident of this zoo now…!"

Not knowing who they were talking about, Clover gave them a quizzical look.

"Is that going to be a problem?"

Skipper took a look at the list and then heaved a deep sigh. "Yeah, unfortunately. That means we have another strong enemy to worry about! Because that villain is really –."

Just then the door to the storeroom flew open and Maurice, pale and distraught, darted inside.

" _Help!_ " he cried to them, "Please help me! _Please!_ "

– And before Skipper could even ask him what had happened, the older lemur flung himself against his chest, breaking into bitter sobs.

Feeling the dampness of tears soak through his feathers, the leader put his flippers around him with a startled look on his face, slightly overwhelmed by the situation.

"Calm down, calm down," he murmured to Maurice at last, "What the hell is happening?!"

"They… They've got them," the older lemur finally managed to choke out, "Julien and Mort went into that hospital. These humans have got them… and now in that backyard there's… there's a dead body –!" He was sobbing so hard he could barely catch his breath. "It was so horribly mutilated, I – I couldn't tell –."

Skipper exchanged a terrified look with his brothers, and Clover's face, too, fell with consternation. Maurice shook his head as he bit his bottom lip to keep his tears at bay.

Now there was complete silence in the room.

Skipper pulled himself together as best he could, knowing he had to say something.

"Now hold up a second! As long as we haven't clearly identified the body, let's _not_ assume the worst! This body might have very well been lying there for a much longer time than Julien and Mort have disappeared." – Even though the feathers on his neck bristled almost painfully, he tried to keep his voice steady. – "We're going to leave right now to check this out, and in case this dead one isn't one of ours – which we _will_ assume until we've absolutely proven the opposite! – we'll have to go inside the hospital and look for them."

The others stared back at him mutely. For a moment he feared he wouldn't be able to break their terror-stricken silence. But then, although pale as a sheet, Clover straightened and saluted. "On it, Sir!" – She was by Skipper's side, ready to assist and await his orders, and so were the other penguins.

"Alright, let's roll. – No, wait. We…" – In a matter of seconds the leader mentally organized their different tasks. – "Clover, we need you to stay here to guard Clemson. If we all leave, he'll use the chance to do we don't know what, and most likely it won't be good for the rest of us."

She seemed reluctant at first – after all, as his bodyguard it was her duty to stay closely connected to her king – but then she nodded and saluted again. "Affirmative."

"…And you, too, Private." – When Skipper thought about the atrocities they'd had to see the first time they'd been in the hospital, he decided he didn't want the youngest member of their team to be with them on a mission again during which they'd probably have to endure much more of this. – "You're going to stay here and assist Clover."

The rookie stared at him with beak agape. "But Skipper…!"

"No buts, Private. You're suspended from service until further notice. – Kowalski, Rico, Maurice, you're with me. Get ready to move out and –."

Just then the door opened again, and Clemson and his android entered the storeroom to report back for work. "What are you all so excited about?" Clemson asked when he saw their group huddled in the center of the room with anxious faces.

Skipper briefed him on situation and told him who of them was going to do what.

Clemson looked at him as if he couldn't believe it. "Julien and Mort are in the Alchimus Hospital?!" Both he and Mea were grinning as they looked at each other. "Oooh, what a pity. I'm _so_ sorry to hear that." Clemson tried his best not to grin as Skipper glared back at him, but his sparkling eyes betrayed his cruel joy. "Well, guess that's just fate for them. Don't be too terribly sad about it; believe me, it happened to a lot of animals here. Maybe they'll survive it, maybe not. – So, Kowalski, do you have a minute? We're actually here to ask you about something. Because in fact –."

"Not now," the tall penguin cut him short, "We need to help the lemurs ASAP. – Skipper, remember the plans you were drawing before. Don't forget to take them along. Even if they're not hundred per cent correct, they'll surely be useful. Remember how easily we lost our way on these dark floors the last time we were there."

"Right." Skipper hurried to get the sheet of paper he'd been working on before. Clemson glanced at the scribbled sketch he'd made when he did so. "You mean the floor plans of the Alchimus Hospital? – But these aren't the real ones."

"Well, I tried to make some myself, since unfortunately we don't have them –."

"Oh, but we _do_ have them." Clemson went to get him another sheet; it was a graph paper with a convenient scale, each square on the sheet representing one foot. The floor plans drawn on it were perfectly accurate, including the exact measurements of each room.

"There's an escape plan in Zookeeper Charlie's office, and I made a print of Mea's photographic memory after the he'd been taken there for the first time," he explained, smirking at the astonished look on Skipper's face.

"So that murder robot _is_ good for something after all," Maurice muttered under his breath. Mea bit his lip and looked away, and Clemson shot Maurice a killing glare.

"And you couldn't have given us those earlier!" Skipper groaned.

"Well, you never asked!" Clemson countered, but then added more softly, "These plans won't be of much use anyway because they're faked. They deliberately show only rooms that are 'unobtrusive' to the public; or, to be more precise, they hide others. We've never been able to find out where exactly in the building Charlie's torture room actually is, and of course it wasn't located on that escape plan either."

"Do you know where his office is?"

"Yes. It's the 37th on the second floor. His name is on the door."

Skipper nodded. "Alright, that's better than nothing. Everyone who's with me, grab a herring and then let's move out, and real fast!"

* * *

A moment later Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and Maurice were assembled again in front of the gate of the hospital backyard, in torrents of wind-lashed rain. They went through the little gate into the rain-choked backyard which was now covered in water, reflecting the blinding flashes of lightning while the storm raged overhead. Maurice tried not to look at the blood-smeared corpse on the ground obscured now by the darkness and rain, but Skipper and Kowalski bravely clamped their beaks shut and went to inspect it.

It was so battered and mutilated the animal's species wasn't identifiable to their eyes at first sight. A single-handed blow had butchered the body in two pieces; now it lay in two unequal halves, the left paw, head, neck, and shoulder some inches away from the main part of the body. They could see the unnatural whiteness of bone from the ribcage and some dark, bloody chunks of the innards. One strike had clearly cut the hind paw in two and sliced the head apart. A second blow had hacked a mortal gouge through sinews, bone, and organs. Dark puddles of blood spread beneath it on the cobblestones, mingling with the rain and glistening like an oil slick.

While leaving the scientific part of the autopsy to his second-in-command, Skipper was well able to see that the body showed strong signs of decomposition. His tension calmed a little; whoever this was, he or she hadn't been killed during the past hours.

Kowalski then cleared his throat. "This animal was of the canine species," he finally presented his forensic analysis in a barely audible voice. "It is, in fact, a male dog's body. The skin is waxy and translucent; the limbs are bloated; livor mortis and autolysis have already set in. Therefore, the estimated time of death is, I'd say… at least two days ago. He hasn't been killed in this place, though; the drag marks and the blood clearly show that for whatever reason his body has been brought here later on."

– Although this result didn't make the crime itself less atrocious, Maurice let out a breath of relief which he had been holding all along and batted away the tears in his eyes, murmuring a quick, silent prayer to the Sky Spirits. Skipper patted his shoulder. Although he tried to fight it, he shivered a little. _The reality of death is always most present not in the process of dying, but in the strange feeling of being next to a lifeless body,_ he thought to himself.

"Let's go," he said then, "I'm sure it's not too late yet. If we hurry, we can still manage to save them!" – Before they left, they saluted the dead dog as a last sign of respect and honor.

The little back door of the hospital swung open at the first try; it wasn't locked.

They held their herrings tight, and then they entered the Alchimus Hospital.

"Kowalski, secure perimeters."

"All clear, Skipper."

"– And Rico, the flashlight, if you please."

"Uhuh." The rogue penguin hacked one up for him. Skipper went ahead at a careful but resolute pace, the other three following him closely. He had told them that since there was a chance they'd meet some humans left at work here, they should refrain from calling out loud for Julien and Mort and concentrate on looking for traces of them.

Maurice stayed close to Rico's side, very grateful to have allies as strong as the penguins. There was no way he would've dared to come here all alone, much less at night. He was well aware of the fact that darkness amplified the insignificant, concentrated fear, and gave rise to eerie phantasms; yet he couldn't avoid these symptoms on himself.

Skipper's flashlight illuminated only a few feet of linoleum floor in front of them. A searing, silent flash of lightning came to their assistance for a moment, allowing them a glimpse into another ward, empty and cobwebbed – then the lightning succumbed to darkness again, and a rolling crash of thunder made Maurice flinch. His imagination played at the edge of foolish fantasies, encircling, mesmerizing, spinning its web until reality and imagination became one.

Although Skipper warned him that they might risk drawing attention to them if they turned the lights on in the rooms they came to, Maurice insisted on doing so every time he could find a light switch, which unfortunately didn't happen too often.

They looked carefully down every corridor but saw no one. Just like the wards, they were all deserted; the doctors seemed to have left in the meantime. After a thorough search on both floors they found themselves back in the entrance hall where they'd started.

"Where on earth could they be?" Maurice took out the floor plans Clemson had given them. "We've been looking everywhere in that maze. They just don't seem to be here!"

Right then Rico made a grunting noise: he'd discovered a side door that led outside the first corridor, which they hadn't noticed before. They opened it to get into a staircase.

They walked it up all the way again to the second floor, and then straight on until the end of the corridor to find another staircase leading further up. The walls formed a right angle here; the floor plans confirmed that they had reached the west corner of the building. There were windows on both walls. The sky outside was blackened; lightning was sparkling around the building.

"At least there seems to be some light here." Maurice had found another switch which actually seemed to work; bright white artificial light flooded the staircase.

However, the only way from here seemed to lead downstairs again; a red caution tape was strung across the steps leading upward. There was a small note in tidy handwriting attached to the banister. Skipper switched the flashlight off and put it down to take the note and feed it to Kowalski's communication device. The computer-generated voice read it out to them aloud, one robotic word at a time:

 _Attention all employees!_

 _The third floor is now in critical condition and in need of repair. The wiring hasn't been redone yet, so it is not allowed to turn on the lights on this floor._ _Access to the stairs is therefore also temporarily prohibited._

 _Dr. C. Grady_

Rico grunted something and pointed at the floor plans Maurice held in his paws.

"You're right; isn't that strange!" Skipper blinked in confusion. "He says that according to the plans, this hospital doesn't actually have a third floor. And I remember when we took that elevator last time, there was no button for it either." Rico nodded his agreement.

Maurice looked at the plans again. "That's true. Well, Clemson said they were faked, so… – Anyway, I guess if this floor is broken, they won't have taken them up there."

Skipper looked up across the caution tape again with a frown. The end of the steep stairs disappeared out of view into the gloom above. _I wonder…_

"Guess so," he said then, "Let's go back."

* * *

Clemson was running through the rain.

He was on his way back to the storeroom; he'd rather done anything else, but Clover had told him to get some of the bigger toolboxes as a next step in their work to fix the helicopter's skid landing gear, and he didn't want any trouble. Mea was still back at the lemur habitat, looking for some windshield glass and fuel tank parts that that were too heavy for Clemson to carry and would follow him as soon as he'd found them.

It was raining very heavily now, and he hastened his pace and hurried to get inside before he'd get too wet from the heavy downpour. As he came past one of the habitat entrances, someone suddenly stepped up to him and struck a webbed foot out in his way. Realizing this too late, Clemson tripped and fell face down into a puddle. His teeth jammed into his lip when he hit the ground. He could taste the salty blood oozing into his mouth. He cursed.

"What the –!"

The other animal reached down and hauled Clemson to his feet and then propped him against the habitat wall. "What in the world do you think you're doing, lemur?" a familiar voice with a Danish accent hissed at him, "You want to get me killed?!"

"Hans, what –."

"Why the hell did you give those penguins the plans of the hospital?!" The puffin's angry face was close in front of him, golden eyes sparkling at him with a rage Clemson couldn't quite comprehend. "You're ruining everything!"

"What the hell are you talking about?!" Clemson tried to free himself from his grip but failed. "Anyway, how do you know that I did this?"

"That's not important right now. All that matters is that it was _me_ who lured the two lemurs into the hospital!" the puffin burst out, "And if you help the penguins to get them out again by giving them the plans, it was all in vain!"

"I see." Understanding began dawning on Clemson.

"You… you're not allied with the penguins, are you?" the puffin asked.

"Sort of. Listen, I'm sorry to mess up your plans, but I still need the penguins for something, so until they solved that for me, I need to go along with what they want and put a good face on the matter. Believe me, I'd love nothing more than seeing Julien hacked and sawn to pieces by Charlie, but if he gets lost I fear the penguins won't do anything for me, so I had to make sure they'd come back out of this maze of rooms – and therefore I had to give them the plans."

"But don't you understand?! This puts my _life_ in danger!" There was a pathetic tone to Hans' voice and a genuine look of consternation about him. "I bought two full sets of pink for me and Lulu from Savio. I had nothing to pay, so I promised him the lives of these two lemurs instead! If the penguins are getting them back alive now, my debt to him remains outstanding until I can get him two other victims! And you know what Savio does to those who break a promise to him…!"

"Regrettable, but not my problem. Now let me go." Clemson tried to ease his grip by putting his paws over Hans' flippers, but they were clamping down too hard over his shoulders.

"Do you have any idea what you've done to me by making that move?! – What could be so important to you about them anyway that you're ready to help them like this?" – Clemson said nothing. A malicious smirk unfolded at the corners of Hans' beak. – "Oh, I know. Fixing your precious robot servant, right?"

Clemson didn't manage to hide his surprise. "How do you know about Mea?"

The puffin chuckled. "I know everything I need to know. Dearie me, you're such a pervert, Clemson. Savio forbade you to use these monsters. You're so doomed if I tell him that you kept one of them alive!"

"I'm not. Because he won't believe you. Why would he listen to someone who didn't pay his debts? Which, as you said yourself, you totally didn't, in case the penguins bring Julien and Mort back alive. And you bet they will."

"Don't get smart with me, lemur." – Suddenly Clemson felt the muzzle of a pistol pushed roughly into his neck, and he froze. – "You're the one who got me into this. So you're going to make it right again!" The puffin chuckled into his ear, softly, maliciously. "– If you can't get me my victims back, then you'll just have to serve as a replacement…"

Suddenly a slender silhouette appeared behind the puffin's back – a karate blow struck his neck with such speed and force that it was a miracle his spinal cord wasn't severed. Hans didn't even have time to scream; his eyes rolled upward into his head as his legs gave way and he crashed face down into the gutter.

"Are you alright?" A bolt of lightning lit up the sky, revealing Clover's face. Her green eyes shone out at Clemson from her face framed by strands of scarlet fur. She wore a soft smile; taking down Hans didn't seem to have cost her any effort.

Clemson breathed a sigh of relief, his mind finally grasping what was happening. "Yes. But I…" He cast his eyes down. "Thank you," he said, and this time he meant it.

"I was beginning to wonder where you were," she said.

Still trying to recover from the shock of being very nearly shot by Hans, Clemson silently watched how rain was pouring down her face, plastering red and white fur to her forehead.

"Good thing you came to look for me," he heard himself reply.

"I actually wanted to tell you to take it easy when you go back to work. You better leave the heavy things for now and treat your injured paw with care a little longer, or else I'll probably need to stitch you up again and again."

She took his injured paw in hers, and this time he returned the grip without fear. Yet he still felt strangely nervous as they held on to one another like this. "Oh no, please don't."

She laughed a little; he'd never imagined a warrior like her could laugh so softly. Her green eyes searched his. "Come on, it wasn't so bad, was it."

Cascading, heavy rain drenched them to the bones. Soaking their fur, it provided a constant running stream of water gliding down their faces, dripping on their shoulders. Yet they were standing stationary in the center of a puddle around their feet.

"No, it wasn't." Clemson returned her smile.

Clover stepped even closer and hesitantly paused. Rain ran in rivulets down her arms and dripped off her elbows. "So, where is everyone around here?" she asked, "No one seems to be in their habitats. And what's going on in the reptile house? The place is brightly lit and full of animals, and there's music, too…"

"Oh, that's Savio's party. It's Friday, you know; he hosts a party there every Friday and even invites inhabitants from other zoos over here."

Clover looked surprised. "Having wild parties while his zoo mates are in danger of losing their lives? A bit macabre, isn't it."

Clemson nodded. "Yeah, that's so Savio. – You know, actually there's a lot of scheming and dirty deals going on, but nobody cares because he's usually in a giving mood then; and that means free pink things for all of us. At least a paw full of them." He frowned. "Actually we really have to go there. At least I should, because I'm a resident of this zoo. It's sort of a rule here in Hoboken not to miss this." – Hesitating, he added, "You can come, too, of course…"

She nodded; there was an oddly warm, affectionate look in her eyes he couldn't quite comprehend. "Do you think it's a good idea to show up there when Savio is around?"

He shrugged. "I think he'll be angrier if we _don't_ show up there when he is around."

Clover thought about this for a moment, and then put her arms around Clemson's neck with another smile. "Alright, then why don't we –."

"What are you guys doing there?" a voice from behind them asked. Startled, they broke apart. Behind them stood Mea, carrying two heavy toolboxes in one paw and a gasoline can in the other. The android's red eyes flicked between them both, taking in the whole scene. He looked confused. "I thought you were in the storeroom working."

His gaze fell to the unconscious puffin on the ground. "What happened to that guy?"

Clemson cleared his throat. Again, for some reason, he felt strangely guilty. "Yeah. No. Um… We just decided we'll go to Savio's party instead of working tonight. You know, we… kind of have to be there…"

The android shrugged. "Well, I don't care where we go, just let it be somewhere _inside_. I hate rain. One tiny crack in your outer casing and you already risk a dozen of blown fuses."

Clover raised her brows. "So you… you're coming along, then?" she hesitatingly asked.

Mea's eyes narrowed as he scanned her. "Well, _yes_ ," he responded distinctly, and now a dark frown creased his brow. He cut a look at his maker and a faint flush rose from Clemson's neck when he met his questioning gaze. He turned away.

"That's fine, let's go then, all three of us," he quickly answered.

* * *

When they entered the reptile house, Savio's party was already in full swing.

Techno music and strobe lights were filling the room. Glittering light was thrown from a disco ball hanging on a rafter of the snake habitat high above a cavernous, smoke-filled dance floor. The ball spun, causing the entire room to sparkle like a swirling snow globe. The place was so crowded they had to struggle through the tight-jammed bodies of different animals in different sizes; but all of them were equally raucous, equally drunken, all of them singing, passing bad jokes across the bar.

They'd just arrived when the DJ, who was Rhonda tonight, started playing a new song, and the lighting in the club changed just slightly. Clemson looked over to Mea, mesmerized by the melody from the first note, just like he was – it was his favorite song, and so it was Mea's, since they had the same likes and dislikes in music just like in anything else. So they both smiled broadly as the words of the song began playing, the perfectly arranged notes filling the room.

Clover didn't fail to notice this. "You like this song?" she asked Clemson, and he nodded, still smiling. – "Do you want to dance?"

He looked down at his feet in embarrassment. "I can't dance."

She raised an eyebrow. "You're a lemur. Every lemur can dance. It's in our blood."

– So he agreed since the music pleased him so much, and Mea, too, was eager to go with them, but Clover said to him, "Be a buddy and guard our table until we're back, okay?"

"But…"

"After all, androids don't dance, do they." – And with that, she took Clemson by the paw and led him away. At the other end of the room someone had turned a fog machine on; they edged themselves through the crowd slowly becoming consumed by the smoke.

But just as they headed out on the dance floor, a sharp screeching sound suddenly chewed through the harmonies of the melody – a high-pitched, chittering whine.

The music ceased abruptly; the animals around them fell silent.

There was the sound again. Clemson felt something inside him freeze; a terrible weight settled across his limbs, as if gravity had increased and was anchoring his feet to the ground. In a matter of seconds that piercing sound drew his memory back to the past, back to the Alchimus Hospital, to what smelled and tasted of violence and crime and a saw blade whirring in a blur of sharp, spinning teeth of steel –

"Sorry," Rhonda's voice blared over the microphone, "Acoustic feedback problems."

A moment later she'd obviously found and corrected the mistake in the mixer console as the music started back up, and so the crowd began chattering again and everyone continued with what they'd been doing before.

Clemson, however, was frozen in place, unable to move, not seeing the faces that were in the crowd, only seeing a human's face with black eyes, dead, soulless orbs… No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get that man's sinister grin out of his head. Those eyes, cold and empty of all human feeling, kept drilling into his soul, ripping through those few thin layers of self-preservation he had tried to reinforce over the time passing. And he hated how this small sound was enough to conjure up all those stirring images of that human's atrocities again, those jagged fragments of agonizing memories…

Then Clover brought him back into reality, her voice a protective shield against the horror of memory. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Clemson saw her stand in front of him again, alluringly swaying to the beat of the music. Her paws came up and cupped his cheeks, and he found himself trembling. In the end he only managed to choke out one single word, "Charlie…"

"He's not here… He's not here. It's just us now. Just try to relax…"

She interlaced her fingers with his and then gathered him into her arms and embraced him firmly. His body tingled as she did this. Something felt wrong about this… Her voice was so soft, and she was so graceful and gentle in her movements – yet there was something floating behind her eyes, something dark and frightening and swiftly veiled, which told him she was feeling the exact opposite of what she was doing and telling him, and watching it now made something inside him shrivel up in fear. _You liar…!_ Suddenly he wished they'd never come here.

He wanted to let go of her paw but she held him tight. She bent over and whispered something into his ear, but he couldn't hear what it was; the music was so loud, the floor was vibrating and making his feet numb, and this was all so confusing…

Then he looked back to their table, looked for Mea's red eyes glowing in the crowd, looked for them for reassurance, but they were gone.

* * *

The control room was lit only by the countless TV screens piled up along the walls.

Soft disco beats resonated through the floor from the reptile house directly under them.

Hans sighed and straightened himself up on the sofa in the back of the room where he lay resting, recovering from the foreign lemur girl's vicious attack. A smirk played around his red and violet striped beak when he looked at his companion.

"…So, what do you think of my plan?"

Lulu turned away from the dozens of surveillance cameras which showed her every inch of the Hoboken Zoo and looked over to him. "This is so mean! Is that really necessary? You certainly remember what he already had to go through because of us…" Her voice trailed off, but it still held the tone of disapproval.

"Clemson's a trickster himself. He ought to know what it feels like to be tricked!"

Lulu took a sip from her champagne and then shrugged. "You're right. And then that bitch who did this to you is allied with them, too." She glanced at one of the surveillance cameras again. "– Hey, did you actually know that they have a helicopter?"

"What, really?"

"Yes, you can see it on that screen over there. It shows that little storeroom behind the Zoovenir shop. Apparently they keep the helicopter there but it doesn't seem to be working; they keep on trying to fix it."

Hans clapped his clipped wings with excitement. "Fantastic! What better means of escape could we get? Let's just wait until they finished it and then take it to get away from here once and for all!"

But Lulu didn't seem nearly as enthusiastic as he was. "And turn the rest of them over to Chainsaw Charlie, huh?" she muttered. Then she was silent for a while and concentrated on her work again. Her fingers carefully, tediously spliced the fragments of tapes lying end to end which she had been cutting for nearly an hour now while waiting for Hans to recover; in the meantime she had become downright buried in snippets.

"Look, I don't like it any more than you do," the puffin told her then, "But what choice do we have?"

Lulu looked up at him again. "Maybe it's all half bad. Savio needs followers like you, you know. He can't afford to sacrifice them all, and I'm sure you're one of those he's most favorably inclined to. Look, he even gave you champagne as a reward when you managed to fix Parker's tranquilizer gun and told Parker he owes you a favor now…"

But Hans shook his head. "I still owe him those two victims. And he won't leave me alone until he gets them, no matter how. You know how this works, don't you? You know what happens if you can't keep a promise like this to him?!" He turned to her, his eyes sparkling furiously. "Hell, it might very well be the two of us who will have to go then instead!"

"Calm down," Lulu said, but he wouldn't.

"There's no way to get out of this. In order to survive here in Hoboken, you have to turn into a killer – it's either the others, or you. See, we're not a zoo anymore. We're a parasite with an ill immune system that eats itself! But this has been Savio's game all along; and you know he always wins the games he plays. – Unless… there's someone stronger than him, and we've found that someone now. If we have that android on our side, we can finally turn the tables… the game will be ours, Lulu! We can do what we want… We'll never have to be victims again!"

She hesitated. "And then? What do you want to do? Take over the zoo yourself once you've overthrown Savio?"

But he shook his head. "No. Not over a zoo Chainsaw Charlie is working in. Let's go away from here."

She nodded eagerly. "But where? You said they'd banned you from your home country –."

"Yes, but I bet the android will be able to make us some fake passports." He got off the sofa but still felt a bit dizzy, so he sat down on the floor next to her. "– Let's go to Denmark, Lulu," he said softly, "I know many beautiful places there. I know if we stayed, we could be as rich as we've always wanted to be, and everyone would be under our command, but the Alchimus Hospital… This place is just too terrible. I can't stand to be here a second longer than I'm forced to." – He took her by the shoulders and then embraced her warmly. – "And I certainly can't stand to think about _you_ being one of Charlie's victims ever again…!"

She smiled as he leaned over and kissed her. Then she closed the shell of the cassette over the finished tape, cleared away the remnants on the floor and rearranged the film reels so they looked as if they'd never been touched. Everything it had taken to do this was some patience and a pair of thumbs, which unlike the puffin, she had.

"This is it," she whispered into his ear and then put the tape in his flippers, caressing them gently as she did so.

"Do with it what we need to do, my charming Dane… Do what has to be done."

* * *

They walked back into a corridor on the second floor at whose end they found another door. The room number was 37. There was a sign next to the door which Skipper made the communication device read out: _Doctor's Office_ , and the name _Charles Grady_ right below it.

To their surprise the door gave way easily to their pull. The office behind it was dark and empty. Once inside, their eyes were drawn to the windows tilted open; vivid flashes of lightning were reflected on the white surface of the walls, creating an eerie luminescence, as if these walls were suddenly illumined in a series of startling phantasms.

Maurice felt his nerves jump with each bolt. "They're not here," he said, struggling to keep his voice from trembling, "No one's here. Let's go look somewhere else."

"No, wait." Skipper belly-slid up to Charlie's desk. He knew that they had no time to lose; yet he couldn't refuse to take at least a quick look around the cruel zookeeper's office, hoping to find something useful, something that would reveal to him whatever could possibly be a weak point of the enemy.

To his great surprise he found a document on the desk that had a photo of Hans attached to it. He gave it to the communication device to read out:

 _Tests of Preparation #7B33D3C_

 _Subject: Puffin, given name 'Hans'_

 _The new psychoactive preparation causes extensive hallucinations and paranoia. The subject_

 _\- sees everyone as enemies_

 _\- suffers from a distorted perception of the physical world_

 _\- acts aggressively towards other animals_

 _Furthermore the preparation increases the blood pressure and practically doubles the heart rate._

 _These symptoms may result in cardiac arrest. Preparation #7B33D3C has been denied approval for further use, for none of the desired signs appeared._

 _Dr. C. Grady_

 _None of the desired signs…?_ Skipper thought about their very first encounter with Hans just after they'd arrived here, and about the armadillo boy he'd seen in the examination room the first time they'd been in this hospital. What he was holding in his flippers right now was without the shadow of a doubt related to his strange behavior. As the full extent of the peril dawned on him, a feeling of numbness began creeping over him, paralyzing his muscles. It seemed that this time Clemson hadn't lied. _So they ARE experimenting on us for some reason!_

"What have you got there?" Maurice came up to his side. "You found something?"

Skipper put the document down again quickly. "No, nothing important." In the back of his mind a dark thought began forming – _what if we're too late, what if they've done something like this to the lemurs as well –_ but he pushed it away. Maurice was already worried enough about the two of them; Skipper had no intentions of increasing his concerns even more.

Then, at the back of the room, they noticed a wardrobe which was a little out of place; someone must have moved it. When they moved it further aside they found a low, hidden corrugated steel door behind it. Maurice discovered something on the floor nearby: a little woolen cap that looked familiar to him. "Oh dear Frank. That's… that's Mort's!"

His voice was shaking. He picked up the little cap and put it to his heart.

Kowalski examined the door through narrowed eyes. "Do you think the lemurs were in this room and then went on through there?"

Skipper tried the handle. "Maybe. It isn't locked."

They opened the door and looked downward into a sunken room that was in utter darkness – a secret passageway. Feeling the walls on either side of the room, they could find no electric switch. Maurice sensed it was a large room but he couldn't be sure. Skipper wanted to pull up his flashlight again – only to realize he didn't have it anymore.

"My flashlight!" – The others turned their heads and looked at him. – "Hoover Dam, I must've left it in the staircase when we were reading that note! Wait, I'll go get it."

He wanted to hurry off, but Kowalski took him by the flipper. "Are you sure it's safe to go alone, Skipper?"

"Yeah, it's just back that corridor we came along a minute ago. I'll be back in a second."

Before his second-in-command could stop him, he turned and belly-slid out of the room.

He had scarcely reached the corridor –

Then the door behind him slammed shut.


	11. Chapter 10 - Crazy

CHAPTER 10

 **CRAZY**

When Hans strutted down the stairs a little later, he found the entire reptile house bathed in seductive blue and yellow nightclub lighting. The room was alive. Guests from zoos all around the mid-Atlantic region were grooving out to a sultry headbanger. None of them would ever guess what was truly going on in this zoo, what was hidden behind this shiny façade. As always, Savio did a splendid job in concealing anything suspicious. To Hans' dislike he was present himself at the party right when the puffin would join the guests; they nodded at each other, trading frosty smiles. Disco lights illuminated Savio's long, sleek, golden body, handsome and chilling in its evil as he came undulating towards Hans.

"Well, well, well, if this isn't my pal Hans. And where have you been, pray tell?"

"Oh, just… no place special," he replied as casually as possible, "Just checking on the new arrivers. You know, making sure no one would get in without an invitation." – The large boa constrictor suspiciously raised an eyebrow. – "You know you can trust me in all matters!" he quickly added.

"Tonight, my friend, you are testing that trust to the limit." Savio had never been one to beat around the bush. "Your time is up, and as far as I can see, you haven't fulfilled your part of the deal yet."

"But I have! I led the two lemurs into the hospital –!"

"Well, you know the penguins. So you know as well as I do that most likely they won't stay there… all the more so because they even have the floor plans of the hospital now."

"But that's not my fault! It's Clemson's. He was the one who gave the plans to them. He said he had some business with them –."

"I'm not interested in your excuses, Hans the Puffin." Savio's voice was low and threatening now. "It was very unwise of you to choose those lemurs as victims, knowing that they have the penguins by their side. Our deal said 'victims' _, ¿me expliqué?_ Did I make myself clear? If you want my protection, it's your job to make sure that they _are_ victims – not fugitives! But if you can't guarantee this, perhaps I better decide myself who is to go next…"

The tip of the boa's long tail brushed against the back of Hans' webbed foot – almost a caress, a teasing, playful brush, before Savio began wrapping a five-foot loop of reptilian muscle around him, tighter and tighter. "I am the King of Hoboken," he whispered into his ear, "I am the light of this zoo, and I am its mean, twisted soul. I know every move you make, or anyone else around here. You know me... I am gracious to those who respect me but I am cruel to those who do not, who dare break their word to me. You know what this means for you… You have to pay your dues, Hans the Puffin, or else you will lose my shelter."

With the tip of his tail he touched the pink bracelets the puffin was wearing on the left wing as if he intended to take them off.

Hans grasped them with his other wing and clutched them tight. "I'll get you what you want, Savio. I promise. Just give me a little more time –!"

The golden eyes under the long black lashes flamed up at him with a silent warning before they narrowed to almost entirely black slits, but then he let him go. Hans almost gasped aloud with relief when Savio finally turned away from him and undulated off through the crowd. Clenching his wings into fists, he watched him leave and thought once more how much he hated him, the zoo, and how urgently he wanted to leave all this behind.

Then he looked for a place to stand in an angle where he could see the whole floor. It seemed he had arrived in good time; Clemson and the lemur girl were still dancing closely.

He smirked to himself; without realizing it, she was playing right into his flippers.

All around them animals were jumping and moving to the sounds of the music. The place was so crowded it was a wonder anyone could move. Hans continued watching the glittering disco ball bask everyone in prisms of light until he found the one again he'd been observing through the cameras all along: a red lemur making his lonely way through the crowd, drawing the sour looks of everyone whose feet his roller-skates accidentally went over.

Hans waited for him at the bar and then stepped up to him as if he'd just spotted him in the crowd. "Well, well, well, if this isn't my pal Mea." He raised a glass to him innocently. "You seem to like this song… May I ask you to dance?"

The android flinched a little; obviously he wasn't prepared to be addressed by anyone right now. His red eyes scanned Hans for a moment and then lit up in anger.

"Of course not," he hissed at him, "Androids don't dance!"

"Oh, don't they? Because they _do_ seem to get angry if they're not invited to dance… Or, if the one they expected to invite them has chosen someone else over them." Hans grinned. "After all, even androids are not as emotionless as one might so falsely believe…"

Mea stared at him, obviously uneasy about the fact that Hans was able to understand him so thoroughly. Then he turned away. "I better leave this place."

"No, no; don't go yet." Extending one flipper in front of him, he kept the android from skating away. – "Come on, have a drink with me, pal."

After a moment of hesitation Mea followed him, although reluctantly, to the bar. "I'm not your pal. In fact, my programming has me classify you my enemy. After all, you attacked my maker before…!"

Hans shrugged. "Sometimes Clemson and I have our quarrels, you know. But this has nothing to do with you; I have nothing against you. After all, you're not him, even though many may falsely presume this, which I am sorry for, by the way. I can understand that you must be annoyed about this; after all, you are still a whole, complete individual which deserves to be respected."

The android said nothing, but the way he looked at Hans told him that the words had affected him. He hid another grin. At the bar he ordered a bottle of engine oil for Mea – the ostrich lady serving at the bar believed at first to have misunderstood him, but then they received the order –, who was apparently surprised at this gesture, but he took the bottle and thanked Hans. Then the puffin took him to a table where they were both facing the floor where Clemson and Clover were still dancing around and around, paws intertwined.

When Mea bit his lip and looked away, Hans could tell from his expression that it caused him pain to see the two of them like this. He frankly asked him, "Do you love Clemson?"

Mea looked at him. Hans saw something flicker up in the red eyes at these words; yet he pretended, "I don't understand."

"Is he important to you, more important than anything?" the puffin rephrased the question, "Is he as though he were a part of you? Do you have… _feelings_ for him you have for no one else?"

"Feelings… they're not computable to me," the android answered evasively, "They're illogical! I've learned to understand that they exist but I… I don't know how to deal with them. How to judge them. They do strange things to my registry… things I can't compute."

Hans nodded understandingly. Leaning a little closer, he jerked his head in the direction of the two dancers. "Well, I'm sure you _can_ compute that you don't judge it in a very, uh… _positive_ way to see him with that lemur girl."

"No. No, not at all!" At that, he clutched the glass in his paw so tightly a shard of it broke loose. Hans quickly got him a napkin before the liquid could come into contact with the sensitive circuits on his fingers. "…But why?" Mea asked then, sounding so resigned Hans would've almost felt sorry for him, "Actually I have no reason to mistrust her more than any of the others of their group. So what… what is it? What is happening to me?"

Hans felt a spark of triumph. The android was actually asking _him_ for advice now about his own state of mind – this meant he had gained his trust now, and that was all he'd hoped to achieve. "Why, don't you know?" He flashed him a grin. "It's jealousy, jealousy pure and simple!" – All he earned was another blank, uncomprehending look. – "You're jealous of the other lemur because the one you wanted for yourself, Clemson, chose to be with her instead of being with you. Do you understand?"

"I… uh, I think so…" By the mere sound of his voice Hans could tell that he didn't.

"But this is so unfair to you," he went on eagerly, "You love him so honestly. You think that in his eyes, you're like him. You think you're a lemur to him like any other, with the same chances of winning his heart like any other. But you give him so much more than he deserves! Don't you see he treats you as though you were just his puppet?"

The android clenched his paws into fists. "He doesn't! He said we're much more than just… creator and creation."

"Well, what do you think you are? Boyfriends? Don't make me laugh! – Listen, Mea," – Hans was looking straight into his red eyes now. – "you know Clemson very well, so you also know that he's a trickster, a stunning liar. Haven't you ever thought of the possibility that he could lie to you as well? Probably you haven't, because you trusted him so much. And of course it's only fair to trust your own maker. Oh, it must be so hard for you to find out…" He left the phrase unfinished, letting his voice trail off for dramatic effect instead.

"Find out what?" Now he had the android's undivided attention. "What do you mean?"

"I don't think I'm allowed to tell you, actually. However, seeing what you're going through, I somehow feel it's my responsibility to do so, since this concerns you most of all, and I wouldn't let you walk into this trap just like that…"

"What are you talking about?!" The android's red eyes were piercing him with their gaze.

Hans dramatically drew a deep breath, and then leaned close to whisper into his ear, _"I know that your maker is planning to get rid of you."_

He took out the cassette Lulu had prepared for him and handed it to the android, who took it in speechless confusion, and then jerked his head towards the stairs to the upper floor. "Won't you come with me for a second?" – Mea followed him without a word.

"You know there's a room up here containing a monitoring system which surveys the entire zoo," Hans explained, "Savio trusts me enough to let me go there. So, when I was there a few days ago looking for something he needed, I accidentally witnessed a conversation between Clemson and one of the penguins, the tall one I believe, and… well, since this conversation was obviously about you, I decided you should know about it. That's why I recorded it for you on this audio tape… it'll help convince you that I'm telling the truth."

Hans shut the door behind them. They were alone in the control room. Hesitating, Mea watched the many rectangular screens whose flickering, pale blue lights danced across the puffin's face. Then he inserted the tape into his built-in cassette deck and rolled it.

 _\- Hey, Frankenstein. What about your android now?_

 _\- Oh, I think we don't need it anymore._

 _\- What…? But we just repaired it!_

 _\- Yeah, but I guess it's not going to last for too long. I activated it before, and it acted kind of weird. It's not going to help us if we really want to make it away from here._

 _\- Are you sure?_

 _\- Yes. I think it was just too badly damaged. Let's build a new one, a better one. Then we can be sure it'll work fine for all the time we need it._

 _\- Alright… what do we do with the old one then?_

 _\- Just deactivate it again. The new one will be much better anyway; it'll fulfill the same functions, only more efficiently._

 _\- So we just leave the old one here?_

 _\- Yes. No one's going to miss this trash, that's for sure._

The tape ended abruptly in a shower of crackling static. Mea stood still for a moment before he turned away from Hans and walked across the room to the window. He gazed out for a while and then gripped the sill to steady himself.

"No… No. I can't believe it! Not Clemson…"

"You see, I didn't lie to you." Hans was watching him from behind, a sly smile playing around his beak. "It was his voice, wasn't it?"

"Yes…!" Mea slumped against the wall, gulping a shuddering breath; suddenly he seemed to be fighting for composure. "So… that's what he really thinks of me… How little worthy he thinks I am. A relic. Scrap metal!"

When the android looked at him again, Hans put on a concerned expression immediately and clasped his wings together.

"Oh, I am so sorry. How can he hurt you like that?! He only cares about himself; that's what he's been doing all along! Well, you know what Hoboken is about; you only survive here by exploiting others." He walked up to the android and laid a wing on his shoulder, whispering into his ear, "I just thought you had the right to know what your maker really thinks of you. You're a gadget to him, you see; he has made you, he thinks, so he has the right to break you again just as easily. He regards you only as a toy; you see, he amuses himself with you! Maybe you're as faithful to him as no one else is, but he, he'll never appreciate it because he thinks you can't really love him. He's convinced you don't have the slightest knowledge of love, the total union of two animals. He is the creator; you are but the copy. You and him, you are two different things. You can't join… You can't love. You may stay by his side forever – still, in his heart, you will always be separate, apart from him."

Mea nodded and moved awkwardly across the small room and almost crashed through the camera stands, as if his legs seemed unable to hold his body weight. He braced a paw on the doorframe, lowering his head. "It really is true. I'm losing him."

He swallowed hard, then went on, his voice starting to shake, "My maker… I don't know him anymore. He's going down a path I cannot follow… and no matter how hard I try, I'll always be in his way! – It all makes sense to me now… After all, I've never been more than a prototype for the other android models – it should've been clear to me that he'd develop a more advanced, more useful version than me sooner or later…"

Hans nodded with feigned pity. "And then he's with _her_ now," he whispered to the android from behind, "You see, he's found somebody else – somebody _real_ – and surely wants to end things with you. But he doesn't trust you enough anymore to tell you so right away. But you've seen how closely he's sticking by this lemur girl's side… maybe he even brought her here tonight to finish you off!"

Mea stared back at him. He clenched his fists so tight the screws in his knuckles became visible under his fur. "No… No!" His shoulders were heaving, and there was a look of pain in his red eyes now, deep, unfathomable pain. "I can't believe this. I can't –!"

His voice broke. Then he clamped his lips tight and stormed out of the room.

Hans watched him leave in utter disbelief, a little surprised himself at how easily he'd been able to succeed in his despicable plot.

Tonight he'd finally be able to make things right with Savio.

Corners of his beak drawn into a wide grin, he then strolled back down to the bar, gave the ostrich lady a dime and a wink, and she handed him back his gun, which she'd deposited there for him in the hidden drawer under the spigot. Hiding it under his wing, he carried it through the crowd discreetly and inconspicuously. Then he stepped out into the yard in front of the reptile house, where he'd spotted the silhouette of a platypus.

"Hey, Parker, it looks like I've got some work for you. You know you still owe me a favor…"

* * *

Something wasn't right.

The sick feeling worsened the longer they danced.

Clover stayed closely by his side all along. Clemson studied her face; though he couldn't read anything in her expression, he could almost feel the growing tension radiating off her like heat waves. Finally Clemson told her he needed a break and pretended he'd go get them another drink. Then, as soon as he had convinced her to wait for him at their table, he made his way to the exit, sheltered from her gaze by the crowd. He went back to the lemur habitat straight away. He found his cave dark, yet could hear someone was in there.

"Mea?"

No one answered. He turned the lights on – and gasped in shock.

His entire cave had been vandalized. This was much more than the usual disorder; someone had deliberately and completely destroyed almost all the objects he'd gathered. His construction plans lay spread all over the place, most of them ripped apart. Someone had tossed the big wall mirror on the floor and stomped on the glass, and then dumped the contents of his toolbox over the shards. The floor was strewn with tools, screws, and circuit boards, the walls daubed with mud. Parts of a crushed hair dryer and an old camera lay scattered next to empty boxes of cigarettes. The room was mingled with the smell of overheated iron and oil.

And the culprit wasn't far.

Clemson saw a familiar figure rise up from behind the billiards table that had gotten knocked over. "What the hell did you do?!" he yelled at the android, clenching his paws into fists, "You must be completely out of your mind!"

Mea looked back at him, a flaming glow in his eyes. He was dark, distant, inaccessible.

And he wasn't done yet.

He was carrying a huge hammer in his paws with which he now went on a rampage again; he slammed it through the TV and then tore down the candelabra, smashed pictures, ornaments, anything he could get his paws on. He demolished the doors of the wardrobe, wildly chanting and laughing as he did so. In a few minutes he had committed ravages it would take hours or even days to repair.

"Stop it!" Clemson yelled at him, "What are you doing?! Stop it, for the Sky Spirits' sake!"

The android turned to him and stared at him with wild eyes.

"No! Not now; now that I know the truth!"

Clemson shrieked with fear when Mea approached him and then proceeded to smash holes in the wall right next to him. He escaped to the opposite wall and on the bed, where he hid behind the huge leaf that was the blanket.

"This is all Clover's fault," the android shouted as he came after him, "She turned you against me and cut me out of your affections. I should've known from the first time that I realized your connection that I don't fit into your plans anymore. And now you left me for her. Because she is so much more real than me! You've always said this could never make a difference between the two of us, but now you've made me understand that it does. What is it she can give you that I don't have?!"

"But I'm not with Clover! You don't understand! I have no idea why she –."

"– Oh, I can imagine what she told you, the evil things she made you think of me. She poisoned your mind against me!"

He was now pale and trembling with rage, the maddest lemur Clemson had ever seen. Scared witless by the sight of him, he pulled the leaf up to his chin.

"You have to be crazy to say that you love me. – This is what she said to you, isn't it! –" Mea yelled at him, blind with rage and frustration, "You look at me and dream that you want me. But you can't hold me; my heart is wicked and wild and it will never belong to anyone because it is made of steel. I'm never going to be what you want me to; all you're ever going to be is insane if you love me!"

The android stared at him, eyes ablaze with an unquenched fury, paws tightly clutching the hammer. "And then I bet she told you something like, you should stop hoping because I can't ever love you back the way you wished for it. Because I'm a machine! – Oh, why don't you run a Turing test on me to prove it once and for all?! I don't know the meaning of love, and this is why we can never be together. After all, _I'm just a machine._ A killing machine, a cruel device, a heartless, heartless lemur! And one day I'm going to destroy you because this is my only true destiny, the reason why I was built. – That's all she told you about me, isn't it? Huh? That's what she said about me, and while I was ready to prove you the opposite, you were ready to believe her more than me… So, before I destroy you, you thought you'd better destroy me!"

The next thing Clemson knew was he was lying on the floor. Mea had tipped the bed over. Clemson pushed it off himself and got to his feet.

"What are you talking about?" he gasped, "Why would I ever want to destroy you?! What is all this madness! – You have to be out of your mind to even consider this! Who the hell made you believe these things?"

"There's no need to cover a lie with another," the android replied sharply, trembling with rage, his chest heaving with sudden breaths of fury.

"A lie?" Clemson crossed his arms, observing him sternly. "I've never lied to you, Mea, and I'm not doing it now."

"Ha! There you go, lying again. Our entire relationship has been a lie from one end to the other!" Mea retorted. "You're using me, and that's really all there's to it. You need me to get out of this hellhole of a zoo because you can't do it alone. But once I've helped you to flee, you're going to let me fall. But I'm done with the tricks you pull on me. I've become so much more than you planned me to be, Clemson. You hear me? I'm through with you!"

And then he lunged at his maker and punched him hard.

His fist hit Clemson like a lightning bolt on the cheek. He was so stunned by the android's force that he was knocked off his feet. He lay on the floor, speechless, holding his cheek, the pain burning into it. He was vaguely aware of Mea saying something and watched him talking through clenched teeth, not understanding a word as he was still reeling from the punch. He watched him lunge towards him again. There was nothing he could do – he was frozen with fear. Mea grabbed him by the throat. The next thing he was aware of was how he was pinned against the wall of the cave, his feet dangling in midair. Mea was holding him there, using all his supernatural strength on him.

Clemson could feel the blood rushing to his head. In a will to survive, he did the only thing he could think of – he used every last bit of energy he had and kicked at the android's chest. Mea didn't even flinch.

"It's true what they say. The only one you care about is yourself," he hissed at his maker, "And I loved you too much to see this, to see how badly screwed up inside you really are. You think you can do whatever you want to others without ever having to care about the consequences. – So bear them now, will you!"

Clemson couldn't move; his feet were still off the ground. He couldn't speak; Mea's paw was still clenched to a fist around his throat. Clemson felt his eyelids fluttering. The lack of oxygen was going to cause him to pass out soon. He dug his nails into Mea's fist, desperately trying to make him loosen the grip. "Please," he choked out, "Please don't..."

Something flickered behind Mea's burning red eyes.

"'I'm a tin lemur! I've never had a heart!'" he yelled before he let Clemson go – hurling him across the room and smashing him against the other wall. Clemson's face slammed against the radiator. He fell hard and then lay crumpled in the corner, gasping for air. He could feel his left eye swell instantly. Afraid to move, afraid to speak, he lay as still as he could be. He didn't know how long it was before he dared to open one eye but it felt like hours.

Mea was at the door, looking back at him.

"You're my maker. You're everything to me! But you, you're ready to give me up because of someone else. This is the worst betrayal that I could ever imagine." Suddenly the android's voice began to quiver. "We've been through so much together. I needed you, all along, and you made me believe you needed me."

Trembling all over, Clemson picked himself up until he sat there in total shock, not knowing what to do, just staring at the android across the room, unable to respond anything.

For the very first time, looking at his creation scared him to death.

He could not believe what Mea was doing to him.

He just sat there, struck dumb, looking at him like at a total stranger.

"I thought you were different from the others," the android continued, "They always said there could only be one of us. But I never saw it this way and I believed you wouldn't either. You, I believed, the one who made me, could see who I really am. Maybe you do, but you don't care. What I'm feeling for you… to you, this is just what you programmed into me; it's software you can use when you wish to and delete once you don't need it anymore."

Then his voice went husky, and it became painfully obvious to Clemson that he was crying. He would've never believed the android was actually able to.

"You're such a disappointment to me, Clemson. I trusted you. I thought that you were proud of what you've made, that you cared for me and loved me for _who_ I am, not _what_ I am." – And then he drew his gun and pointed it at his maker.

His eyes widening, Clemson drew a sharp breath, crushing fear taking his breath away.

The android just stared at him.

"There you go. You even think I'd kill you!" A choked sob escaped his lips. "If you already think of me as the monster they tell you that I am, I might as well act that way!"

With these words he tossed the gun at Clemson's feet and then rushed out of the cave, pale, wild-eyed, shaking with sobs.

* * *

They flinched and turned around. The door was shut; a sudden gust of wind coming in through the open windows must've pushed it closed.

"Skipper!" Kowalski hurried back to it, unlocked it, and pushed. It didn't open. Along with Maurice and Rico he put his shoulder to it, but to no avail. The door wouldn't budge.

"Damn it!" Kowalski cursed, and Rico gave it a hard hit with his flipper.

"Kowalski, open the door," they heard their leader's voice from outside.

"We can't! It's stuck, Skipper."

They waited, watching the handle shake as Skipper rattled it from outside. It didn't work; the door didn't move an inch, not even when Kowalski, Maurice, and Rico threw themselves against it from the inside, and outside Skipper pulled with all his force. When they ran out of strength, they leaned back against the wall, panting and sweat trickling down their backs, and exchanged a terrified look. They were caught in here!

"Listen, I'm going to look for some tools in one of the other rooms," Skipper announced, "But first of all I need to get the flashlight. I can barely see what I'm doing here."

"Maybe in the meantime we should try to go down into that hidden tunnel, or whatever it is," Kowalski suggested, "If the room we'll find there has another door which we can open, we'll be able to leave it and then make a detour to meet up with you again, Skipper."

Outside it was silent for a little while. "Alright, but don't go any further if there's anything suspicious to you. Stay covered. I'll be back here again in a minute."

Then they heard their leader's steps moving away, his webbed feet squishing on the ground.

They were alone now.

Maurice could hear his own heartbeat, fast like a hummingbird, loud like a drum. They went back to the hidden door. Leaving it wide open to take advantage of the lightning flashes from outside, they stepped down into the cool, damp, narrow corridor feeling their way. After a few minutes, their eyes adapted to the darkness, and they began to see their surroundings more clearly. The howling of the wind outside was at a feverish pitch now. They reached the end of the corridor; they stepped in the direction where they thought the door should be and found it. Reaching along the surface of the door, they looked for a sliding bolt or a handle but found nothing. Only the smooth surface of the wood. They pulled at the door's edges with their paws and flippers, but without success.

Maurice gave up with a sigh. The howling wind resounded in his ears, deafening him. The emptiness of the building magnified the sound. It pierced his brain. Suddenly he found himself trembling and told himself that he was in no danger as long as he was with the penguins, but his body paid his brain no heed.

Then he realized it was not _he_ who was trembling.

It was the room. The ceiling over their heads rumbled.

"Hey, do you hear that?" Maurice clutched Kowalski's flipper so hard it must have hurt him. "What on earth is happening?!"

The tall penguin had no answer; he and Rico stared up at the ceiling with the same appalled look on their faces. Over the rumbling they could hear a hum, slowly swelling to a whining shriek –

The sound of a chainsaw.


	12. Chapter 11 - Outside

CHAPTER 11

 **OUTSIDE**

Clemson stayed back alone in the cave.

When he closed his eyes, all he saw was Mea with the hammer, and then, how he'd run away from him, crying. The incident kept replaying over and over in his mind, yet he still didn't want to believe what had just happened. All the time he fought to clear his thoughts, but an intense, throbbing headache in both temples kept him from doing so. He felt he couldn't stand being alone with himself any longer, alone with his thoughts, but he was too scared to do anything, anything but sit here in silence and loneliness.

At last something distracted him from his thoughts: he heard someone enter the cave.

Clover.

"There you are," she said, "If you wanted to leave, why didn't you just tell me and… – oh my gosh." Her gaze wandered across the destroyed room. "What the hell has happened here?!"

"It was Mea." Clemson struggled for the words, his throat swelling with grief. "He went on a rampage."

And then he started to cry. He pressed one fist against his lips to stifle his sobs, but Clover wouldn't fail to notice. He hid his face in his paws; through a veil of tears he watched how she hesitated, but then reached out and placed her arms around him as if to comfort him.

But this time he wouldn't fall for it.

He vigorously pushed her away. "This is your fault! All your fault!" Suddenly he was livid with foaming anger. "It's you who's done that to us. You screwed up everything!"

"Look, Clemson, you can't say I didn't tell you how dangerous it was to –."

"To love an android? Yeah, I damn well loved him! I loved him, and you screwed up everything. You turned him against me. He trusted me, and you turned him against me!"

He got to his feet, paws clenching into fists. Clover folded her arms across her chest with a dispassionate expression that made him want to rake his claws across her face until she felt some of the agony he was feeling. His chest tightened another painful notch.

"– You know what I think? You wanted this to happen all along. You sowed these seeds of distrust between us all the times you told me how dangerous he was because you wanted us to end up like that. The dance, and everything else… how you healed me! – All that was just a clever act to worm your way into my affections, was it not? – The true reason why you started being so absurdly nice all of a sudden, after you'd tried to kill me the first time we met – you wanted me to lose Mea! All along you were just itching to provoke us into a fight, so I would lose an ally, so he wouldn't be a danger to you anymore!"

At that Clover stood up and took a step back. Her expression was cold with contempt now. For the first time since they'd met she looked down on Clemson with a smile – a dark smile, but a very honest one, too. There was a note of triumph in her voice when she finally answered, "I'm surprised you didn't figure that out earlier." She snorted in dry amusement. "Not such a clever liar after all, are you."

"You had no right to do that," Clemson yelled at her, "You had no right!"

Her lips curled back in a sneer. "I have the right to do anything I want to you – after what _you_ have done to my king," she growled with a fiery glare, clenching her fists together and cracking her knuckles, her eyes burning with fury long pent up, "Did you really think I'd ever let you get away unpunished for that? – You really liked this android, didn't you. Oh, you can't even begin to imagine what a pleasure it is for me to see you humiliated like this! All I ever hoped for was that things would turn out like that; he did quite a number on you, I see. Too bad he didn't finish you off completely!" – She bared her fangs at him, foam churning from the corners of her lips, pure rage filling her every word. – "Well, it seems I need to see to that myself – not yet, of course. But believe me, traitor, if we didn't need your help, you'd be dead for long by now! As soon as this ends, so does our truce – and then you better make sure you get out of my sight as fast as you can, because I swear you, as soon as I get the chance to lay my paws on you, you'll be running for your life!"

Clemson turned away from her, trying to stifle another wave of sobs. Her threats couldn't scare him now. All he could think about was Mea, how much he wanted him… how much he had irrevocably ruined things between them. Bitter self-doubt rose in him – how could he have let this happen? –; self-accusing questions were pelting him. Surely Clover's plan wouldn't have succeeded if their mutual trust had been stronger. How could he have failed to let Mea know how much he truly meant to him? He hated himself for it, more than anything. His sobs grew louder. Without him he felt more alone than he had ever been in his entire life. But now it was too late for remorse –

Suddenly another voice ripped through the quiet twilight of the cave.

"Paws up, you two, and no games."

Clemson flinched and looked up. Two figures had appeared in the entrance; the moment they emerged into the light, Clemson and Clover saw they had their guns pointed at them.

"I'm sorry, Clemson, my old chum." Hans stepped up ahead inside the cave with a smirk, followed by Parker. "But it looks like your time is up. Honestly, I wish I didn't have to do this… but Savio isn't a patient boa, you know, and I still owe him these two victims he couldn't get because of you. So I guess it's just logical that I'm choosing you in return now… and this lovely lady you lately seemed to be so attracted to. – Get her, Parker."

"Hi-yah!" Clover launched a kick at the platypus before he could even try to attack her. His gun flew from his paw and slid across the floor, and they rushed at each other and began wrestling wildly. Clemson, however, had neither her skills nor the strength to fight. He didn't even try to defend himself when Hans snatched him by the arm, yanked him to his feet, and shoved him out of the cave.

He guessed that Clover would defeat Parker easily.

However, she certainly wouldn't care about helping him against Hans.

* * *

 _What's taking Skipper and the others so long…?_

The youngest member of the penguin team paced back and forth behind the barbed wire fence in the puffin habitat, feeling more uneasy with every passing minute. How he regretted that Skipper had refused to take him along! Of course he realized that this order was well-meant and that his leader only wanted to shelter him and make sure he was safe – but perhaps now his brothers were in a situation that required the use of his skills; perhaps just right now he could've helped them and wasn't there to do so!

He tried hard to push this thought away, but it kept coming back, and soon it was so strong he was ready to grab the weapon they'd left him and run right into the hospital in order to look for his friends, despite the paralyzing fear that gripped him each time he only dared to look at the building.

He knew he was only one small penguin.

But if his brothers were in danger, he would do anything to help them.

He was on his way out of the habitat when he noticed a familiar figure roller-skating by.

An idea came to him: going into the hospital alone was dangerous for sure; but maybe, he thought, he didn't have to. If he was friendly to the android now, maybe he would manage to win him over in a way that he could convince him to accompany him and help him find the others.

Of course, facing that android was dangerous, too. If anything got out of hand, this could very well be the last thing he ever did.

Private took a deep breath. For his brothers he would risk it anyway.

He fidgeted with the weapon; if Mea saw that he was armed, perhaps he wouldn't stand any chance at all of getting into a halfway peaceful conversation. Besides, the android carried an imposing arsenal of weaponry himself and was super strong on top of that, so in case it came to a fight, Private wouldn't have a chance of winning against him anyway with his tiny pistol. So he dropped the weapon, deciding to approach him unarmed.

Mea had withdrawn to a little yard behind the storeroom. He sat slumped amid some trash dumpsters, staring gloomily into a puddle on the ground next to him.

Private had never seen him like this before. – And, as it was the small penguin's nature, he immediately wondered what was wrong with him.

Empathy – this was Private's special gift. When he looked at other animals, he was inside them. He walked through the corridors of their souls; he was thinking their thoughts, feeling what they were feeling. This was what made him understand others so well, what allowed him to relate to their actions and reactions – no matter who it was, or _what_. And this was just what he did now when he looked at Mea sitting there, totally lost in his thoughts, looking as if he was trying to figure out the meaning of his existence. Private stared at the android, reading his discomfort. He looked through his tin shell and watched the mighty storm raging within his agitated soul, saw that all his violence was just a silent cry for love, that he was wielding weapons while he actually longed for tenderness. And suddenly he was able to step up to him without a trace of fear.

Mea winced when he noticed the little steps of webbed feet waddling up to him. He reached for his gun, grabbed it, and pulled his paw out against the rookie. "Beat it."

"Please, put the weapon away. I just want to talk." Private made sure the android wouldn't get any unfriendly vibes from him; maybe it seemed odd to him that he was trying to be kind to him, yet it couldn't seem dangerous in any way.

"Well, I don't! Now get lost." – Private stayed where he was. – "I said get lost, or I'll shoot ya!" However, this was very unlikely to happen, since at the same time he tossed his gun to the ground and then turned away from the unwanted visitor.

Private stepped closer and gently put one flipper to the artificial lemur's shoulder until he would look at him again. He then put the ends of his flippers together in a shy gesture but bravely, tranquilly held his furious gaze.

"Where's Clemson?" he asked, trying to keep the conversation casual and unforced, "I thought you were with him."

To his surprise, Mea flinched at these words as if he'd hit him.

"I'm not. And I won't ever be again!" he replied in a tone so sharp and abrupt that Private stood taken aback and a little frightened.

"What does that mean?" he asked – then his eyes widened in understanding. "Wait, you… you guys aren't fighting, are you?"

Mea's expression faltered. It was obvious he hadn't expected this from the penguin.

"What's that to you?!" he snarled.

"So you are." – Mea said nothing in return. "Come on, what is this about?"

"Oh, just leave me alone!"

Private pouted. Although he'd sworn to never weaponize his cuteness again, there were certain special occasions when he would still decide to use this unique skill of his to his advantage. Now was one of them. He hoped with all his heart that even though he was a machine, the android would be susceptible enough to fall for it.

"Come on, tell me. I'm sure I can help you." He hopped and flapped a little.

The android watched this with confusion.

"Just tell me about it!" Private folded his flippers under his chin, his eyes turning big and round and innocent, striking what Kowalski called his 'Quantum Hyper Cute pose'. Then he flashed at the android his cutest, cuddliest smile. And won outright.

"It's terrible!" Every trace of anger disappeared from Mea's countenance, leaving back nothing but despair. Everything he tried to hide could no longer be tied down; it broke loose, cascaded from him in hateful, bitter words. "Why am I never enough to him?! I've never been disobedient. I did everything for him and I would keep on doing it without hesitating. I was ready to sacrifice myself for him every time they wanted to take him to the hospital, every time! Why is he doing this to me?" – Private kept smiling and batted his eyelashes although the words sent shivers down his spine. – "I thought I was more than a cluster of wires and screws to him. Well, how precious is a 'you're my one and only' from someone who lies at anyone, anytime, anywhere he goes? Oh, how deeply I was at fault! He'll scrap me! Blow me up like that mad penguin did before, and then just walk away and leave me to frazzle! – Just because I'm NOT FUCKING REAL!"

A sudden anger rose up inside the android again and he hit the trash dumpster next to him with all his strength, knocking it over eventually. At that point Private stopped smiling and drew back in shock, his eyes wide with horror.

 _I've gone too far. I made him angry. Now he's going to kill me in his rage!_

But no such thing would happen. Mea breathed deeply and painfully. "What did I do to deserve this? Why doesn't he _care_ …?"

He wrapped his paws around his knees, burying his face, his shoulders twitching as the first sobs escaped him. The tears came harder and harder until his sobs were almost soft screams. And Private watched the dangerous creature cry, feeling nothing but regret gripping him. Having a heart of gold, he always willed to do good and to offer help and make things right with everyone – and this wasn't what he'd wanted!

He was unsure of it only for a moment, but then dared to carefully put a flipper around the android's shoulder. When Mea looked up at him, Private reached out to hug him, a tentative gesture – Mea hesitated, but just for the merest shadow of a second, and then gave in to the embrace. Private wrapped consoling flippers, almost too short to hold him, around the android's quivering body. Iron arms hugged him back; he felt screws and nuts against his back feathers which were standing on end at the unfamiliar touch. But the small penguin held him tight in an honest, fearless gesture of sympathy, his eyes closed, willing Mea to find the safety and consolation he offered him.

"Now, now. Calm down; why on earth would Clemson do such a thing?!"

"I don't know! But he wants to destroy me… to _kill_ me!" Mea's voice was thick and choked. "Once I've helped him out of here, I'll be of no use to him anymore, and then…" His voice trailed off. He withdrew from Private's flippers and looked into his face, tears welling up in his red eyes.

Private just shook his head in confusion. "But Clemson was so happy when you came back to life…! Listen, Mea, I'm sure this is all a bad misunderstanding."

"But he said it!" The android brushed a paw over his face to wipe his tears away.

Private stared at him with beak agape. "He said to you that he was going to destroy you?"

"No. I… He didn't say it to me. He said it to that other penguin he was working with to repair the helicopter there in that storeroom."

"Oh, really? But I was with them the entire time they were working there! Skipper told me to assist them… I don't remember them saying anything like that; in fact they've never talked about you at all!"

"You're at fault. It happened only a few days ago. It's even recorded, look at it!" With these words he handed a cassette to the astonished-looking penguin. Private turned it over in his flipper a few times and then nodded.

"Yes, I'd like to hear that. – Come!" He took him by the wrist and quickly dragged him along, and Mea stumbled behind him, barely able to keep his balance, his skates scrabbling furiously on the cobblestone. They went back inside the storeroom where the helicopter was still resting unfinished, tail rotor dismantled and all doors open, and Private climbed into the pilot seat. While the engines were still damaged, Kowalski had already managed to fix most of the devices on and under the dashboard. He rewound the tape, inserted the cassette into the player, and ran the conversation over again.

 _"- …Just deactivate it again. The new one will be much better anyway; it'll fulfill the same functions, only more efficiently."_

 _"- So we just leave the old one here?"_

 _"- Yes. No one's going to miss this trash, that's for sure."_

The reel ended. Mea was slumped down onto the pull-down stairs of the helicopter, staring up at Private with an ashen face. "There you go. It was his voice, you heard it. He needs me in order to survive here… but no longer! He doesn't even plan on taking me along with him after we've found a way to escape! Instead he's going to switch me off and build himself a new android servant then, a more advanced one than I am… And – and I just thought he –." His voice broke, and he swallowed hard.

"No way…!" Private shook his head. "I was with them all along, and these words _do_ sound familiar to me indeed. I… I remember them, but… somehow they weren't like this."

The rookie tried hard to recall the details of how the conversation had unfolded. "– I don't know how to explain this… it's like some parts were missing. And I can assure you that whatever Clemson was talking about, he didn't mean _you!_ "

But Mea had turned away from him. "She won." He rested his elbows on top of his knees and hid his face in the palm of his paws, ashamedly trying to stifle his sobs.

"Clover… She won. He hates me. She made him hate me. – Oh, but it's okay," he added bitterly after a while, "I can accept defeat, you know. It's not that I'm afraid to die or something. It's just that I… love him, and I thought he'd love me back, and his love for me would keep him from these thoughts, keep him from seeing nothing but a machine in me." He paused and stared intently at the young penguin.

 _He looks so lost and alone_ … Private hopped out of the helicopter and began frantically waddling in circles. "No, no, no! Something's not right. – Who gave you that tape?"

"Hans the Puffin."

"Is he a friend of yours?"

The android shook his head. "No, not at all."

Private pondered upon this. Something about it seemed odd. In Hoboken everyone was each other's enemy; Mea had just confirmed it himself again – so if Hans wasn't a friend of his, why would he care to entrust him with something as important as this? Private knew very little about Hans in general, he just knew of Skipper's deep-rooted dislike and mistrust towards him, and that the puffin had tricked them once before when he'd pretended to have come to the Central Park Zoo to make peace with Skipper and then taken over the penguin habitat instead. Maybe he was trying to trick Mea now.

Climbing back inside the helicopter, Private thoughtfully turned the cassette in his flippers. He noticed its shell wasn't welded but screwed together; some of the screws seemed to be missing. One of Kowalski's screwdrivers was still lying on the dashboard next to him; he took it and removed the other screws as well so the tape deck came apart. Then he took off the top half of it while leaving the bottom half and its contents lying on the dashboard. From the way the tape was rolled he could see it had been transplanted from a different shell into the current one. He carefully unwound the spool, pulling the tape itself off the reel.

"What are you doing?" Mea watched him work with teary eyes. "Destroying it won't make anything undone!"

"I'm not destroying it…" Private watched the tape with wide eyes. "This tape… it's a fake!"

Kowalski had shown him once how to do this but he hadn't succeeded because he'd lacked the patience. But he still remembered how it worked, and he saw the evident results of it now: the ends of the cut pieces were joined with a special adhesive splicing tape. They were meeting flush, with no overlap of tape, and they'd been set back in the casing in the correct layout so the cassette would run smoothly in any player.

Private clasped his flippers together in excitement. "You've been had, Mea, don't you understand? This conversation was cut in a way to change its context, to make you believe it would've happened differently than it actually did!" He watched the android scan the tape; obviously he needed a while to process the data of what he saw.

"You're right," Mea said then, eyes widened in utter surprise, "But that means…"

"Yes, of course! I told you, Clemson has never thought about getting rid of you in any way. – There you see how unjustly jealous you've been!" the rookie chided him, "You should be happy for Clemson that he's been cured; and you should be grateful that Clover did this for him. After all, she didn't have to, after what he's done to her king! – Whatever that was exactly; Skipper still refuses to tell me… Anyway, she chose to do it, and you should thank her for this! Toxemia is a serious illness; maybe without her, he wouldn't be alive now!"

Private looked up into the android's eyes and was pleased to see how much his words affected him. Guilt seemed to rack him now; guilt because of what he had done to his maker, guilt because he had let jealousy get the better of him. Private took him by the paw. The whole mess required unraveling.

"Now, let's go back and talk to Clemson and make things right."

Mea nodded; still he hesitated. Then he shook his head and withdrew his paw from the small flipper holding it. "But I can't just… Look, I did to him what I swore I'd never do," he choked out, "I beat him. I hurt him so badly. – Oh, he'll never forgive me for that!"

"Now look, I think it's even worse for him as long as he doesn't actually _know_ why you would do something like this to him. If you just tell him what Hans has done to both of you, I think it'll help a lot."

"Okay…" He reached out for Private's flipper again and followed him out of the storeroom and back to the lemur habitat. They found the cave empty, looking even messier than before. Private stared at the shambles that had been the lemurs' home, wide-eyed and beak agape.

"Oh my gosh! What happened here?!"

Mea picked up something from the floor: a dart gun. "That's Parker's." He nervously bit his lip. "You think… you think he attacked Clemson while I was away?"

Private tried to think this through as fast as he could. He had no idea what had happened here, but if he wished Mea to go where he wanted him to, this was the chance. Everything seemed to fall into place; he had made a first successful attempt to helping the android settle things with his maker, and he would still get him to save Skipper and the others.

He nodded eagerly at him. "Oh yes, very likely! The Hobokeners always look for other animals to sacrifice to that zookeeper Charlie, so they won't have to go themselves, right?"

Mea processed this. "Oh, no," he whispered then, "Oh, dear Sky Spirits, no."

He sank down on a tilted cupboard, burying his face in his paws.

"You're right… Now I see through it all!" When he gazed up at Private again, he looked sick with worry. "Parker and Hans have been working together before. And this was all Hans was trying to achieve by fooling me like that: he wanted to separate us because he knew we'd be more vulnerable if we weren't supporting each other. That means… that means I could've sealed Clemson's fate," he added, his voice breaking over the words, "Because I didn't stop them! I'm sure he and Parker forced Clemson to go into the hospital, and I wasn't there to save him! If he doesn't survive it this time, it's my fault...!"

"But maybe it's not too late yet," Private encouraged him, "Whatever happened here – it can't be all that long ago! – So if you hurry, you might still have a chance to save him!"

– And Mea skated off as fast as he could.

Private watched him leave, content with himself. _Perfect!_ Whatever was hindering Skipper and the others from coming back, if the android went on a rampage in that hospital in order to find his maker again, it could only mean benefit for them, too. In this way he was able to send help to his brothers without even having to take any risks himself. He could stay right here where he'd been ordered to be and would still have to worry much less than before.

Feeling a bit proud at his slyness, he smiled to himself and hoped his brothers would appreciate it, too.

* * *

Skipper was steeped in utter darkness. He couldn't see the flipper he held up close to his eyes. He made his way back to the staircase feeling the walls tracking to it and then flicked the switch next to the door that lead into it. White light flickered briefly, dimming, then flaring to full intensity. Skipper suppressed a sigh of relief. As fast as he could he hurried back up to the place they'd been before, found the caution tape again, Charlie's note –

But his flashlight wasn't there.

He blinked in confusion. He was so sure he'd put it down here to read the note! Either his memory failed him, and he'd lost it before somewhere else on the way, or…

Just then the lights flickered, wavered, flickered again, and died out. Skipper cursed and reached for the switch again but to no avail. It only clicked uselessly. The power could've been cut off by the thunderstorm, he reflected. Not knowing what to do, he carefully made his way into the hall next to the staircase, which was at least slightly illuminated by a monitoring screen up in one corner of the ceiling. In flickering white and gray it displayed a live picture of the hospital's underground garage – and just when he looked at it, two familiar figures were about to enter it.

To his surprise, he recognized them as Hans and Clemson. He frowned; actually Clover was supposed to make sure Clemson would be at work, not running around and possibly making dirty deals with any of the shady characters of this zoo!

But he would care about this later; now he had to concentrate all his forces on rejoining his men and then finding the missing lemurs.

Suddenly he heard a sound at the other end of the corridor – the sound of wheels on linoleum… Someone was coming towards the hall. With his back pressed against the wall next to the door, Skipper waited until whoever it was would come up to him. The pounding of his heart was becoming deafening as the sound grew louder, louder still –

Just as the door opened, Skipper leapt forward, right into his way. " _Freeze!_ "

The other man gave a shocked cry – and, unable to brake so quickly on his wheeled feet, stumbled right into him, sending them both sprawling to the floor.

"Clemson!" Skipper huffed when he got a look at him after all, "I thought I saw you with Hans…?" He glanced down at the lemur's skates and rolled his eyes. "Oh, you're the other one," he commented, just as the artificial lemur frantically grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Where is he?"

"What?!" Skipper pushed his paws off his shoulders.

"Where is Clemson?" Mea struggled to get to his feet, slipping backward again twice on the wheels of his roller skates.

"I just saw him and Hans down in the garage on that monitor over there. But I wouldn't –."

However, before he could finish, the red lemur already skated down the corridor at full speed. The leader watched him leave, his face pensive. Even if he found the flashlight again somewhere inside this maze, he still couldn't be sure he'd find something to open this door and free his men… If it was truly, irrevocably stuck, nothing would help but to break it. But they weren't strong enough for that. They needed more power than an animal of their size could usually have; if they had this artificial lemur on their side…

He decided it was worth a try. Taking out his herring, he moved back towards the staircase and then headed down to the underground garage as fast as he could.


	13. Chapter 12 - Targeted

CHAPTER 12

 **TARGETED**

The underground garage of the Alchimus Hospital was dark and empty.

It was lit only by some low wattage light bulbs, which gave off an eerie glow. The constant sound of the ventilation system over their heads droned monotonously, yet the air was stale and full of noxious exhaust fumes and the stench of gasoline. Oily pools were covering the ground.

Hans stopped to look around. No one was there. The doctors didn't seem to be around anymore, and the other animals were too afraid to go here. The only life to fill this desolate place was their two souls… and soon, there would only be one of them left.

"That's it, bastard. This time I'll make sure you won't escape Charlie anymore!" He kicked Clemson's legs out from under him, making him fall to his knees. "Any last words?" The puffin's dreadful, cackling chuckles thrilled through the room, indicating how much he was enjoying the prospect of his imminent triumph.

He racked the slide of his gun with a soft, threatening sound.

Clemson closed his eyes, kneeling with his paws lifted up, his heart starting to race so badly it hurt when he felt the cold muzzle of the gun against his right temple. He held his breath. Not a sound passed his lips. He just hoped the puffin would aim well.

Then a shot echoed through the silence.

But the pain stayed away.

The only thing that followed was the soft sound of splashing liquid as the puffin slumped beside him on the ground into a pool of oil. Clemson opened his eyes and stared at him. Hans lay motionless on one side, dust and oil staining his flank and shoulder. His eyes were closed, his beak half open, and his gun lay only inches away from his outstretched flipper as he was unable to hold the weapon any longer.

A sedative dart stuck out of his neck.

Slowly, hesitatingly, his paws still raised, Clemson turned to look at his assailer. Only a moment before, he'd been sure he would never see his face again. "Mea…"

The android was holding Parker's dart gun. Then he rushed to his maker's side and dropped it.

Clemson gazed at him as if hovering on the razor edge of fight or flight. All of a sudden he found himself trembling so hard he could barely pronounce a word. When Mea moved to place his arms around him, his entire being railed against it. "Don't touch me!"

Furiously he tried to push him away, but Mea took his trembling paws into his and held them tight. He glanced down at him with an expression Clemson couldn't read. "Listen, I –."

"I said _don't touch me_." Clemson pulled away from him and, with both paws clenched into fists, pounded the android's chest.

But Mea grabbed his wrists and held them tight. "Please listen to me, Clemson."

His words were firm. He pulled him to his chest and held him close. Clemson glared at him, his lips quivering. He tried to wrench away; when the android wouldn't let him, he hid his face in his fur and gave a thin cry, thumping his chest again. Mea held him hard against him. Little by little, his trembling subsided. The android pressed his face into his maker's hair. "I'm sorry, Clemson, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you, I swear. Please believe me…!"

"I don't! Because you meant every word you said. And now you're just trying to smooth things over." Tears leaked down Clemson's pale cheeks as he struggled to breathe.

"That's not true… Please give me a chance to make things right!"

Inhaling a deep breath, Mea cupped his maker's face in his paws, looking deep into Clemson's teary eyes. "It's that son of a bitch who's to blame for everything!" – He jerked his head towards the unconscious puffin. – "All I can say is that if I'd known before what I know now, nothing of this would've ever happened. – He was the one who told me you were going to destroy me! He set me up in a very clever way, and I fell for it. I listened to him, believed him as if my life was really in danger the way he said it was. It's a regret that I'll carry with me for the rest of my life." He let go of Clemson with an effort of his own, and then turned his head away. "– All their clichés about how an AI will overthrow you, take over the world, and eventually dominate or even destroy animalhood… now you see them being proven true, don't you. It's a shame. Such a shame."

He closed his eyes in weary, painful resignation. "You're my maker. I should've never listened to anyone but you. I hurt you so badly… If you want to switch me off now, you have any right to do it. I deserve it."

Clemson listened to him with great surprise. Then he reached out to put a paw on his arm, tentatively touching him. "Oh, Mea…"

The android moved closer and slid his paws over Clemson's shoulders. This time, he didn't draw back. Mea kissed him deeply, tenderly, urgently.

"Please forgive me," he whispered into his maker's tangled fur, "Please don't tell me it's over; don't tell me I crushed something between us that we can never make right again."

Clemson turned his face up to him at last. His gaze flickered between the android's glowing eyes, and he wished with everything inside him that his words were true – that he could feel safe with him again.

"I need you. Without your help those humans are going to kill me…"

His voice faltered when the memories rushed upon him again; within fragments of seconds he saw it all again, lived one more time through the long, sickening dread of everything he had experienced in the hospital. He tried to recover himself and push the thoughts away; he took a deep breath, but still the words wouldn't come. Then he lowered his head and squinted towards the ground.

Mea frowned and wrapped his arms around him again. Clemson's tears dampened his fur.

"…We're dying, Mea. They'll kill us all," he finally managed to choke out, "Do you remember Ralph the Porcupine? He's been an inhabitant of this zoo for so long; none of us believed Savio would let him fall. But then he ended up in Alchimus after all, and you saw what they did to him, didn't you. Pumped him full of drugs and then bathed him in acid to see how much his body could take without perceiving any pain. – They'll kill us in the cruelest of ways; one by one we must go, all of us, sooner or later. We were so foolish to think we could ever escape… We don't stand a chance against those humans. In the end Charlie will always have his way with us. …You were my last ally against him, my only true ally so far –."

"– And I'm still your ally now! I'm so sorry for all the horror I've put you through. I was just so scared you would destroy me. Slice me up with a chainsaw and put a stick of dynamite between my ribs, like that mad penguin did, back then when you were having fun with Julien."

Clemson looked up at him again, wiping his eyes with his paw. "I don't even know what makes you think such things. Why the hell would I do that?!"

And then Mea handed him the cassette and told him everything he'd learned from Private before. He opened its shell the way he'd watched the little penguin do it and showed his maker the spliced fragments of tape. Clemson turned the cassette in his paws, a look of complete and utter surprise on his face – and then all of a sudden a soft, anguished cry fluttered past his lips. His paw flew to his neck as an expression of pain distorted his features.

Mea winced a little. "Clemson…?"

But he didn't respond. His head tilted back as his eyes fluttered closed and although they were so close to each other, Mea barely managed to catch him as his body collapsed and he fainted into his arms.

"I won't go down that easy."

Hans' voice filled the room, soft and threatening. They had been talking too long. The puffin was on his webbed feet again, and he was holding both Parker's gun and his own. "I owe Savio two victims, and I will pay my dues. – Now surrender to me!"

"Keep dreaming!" Mea growled, "You fucking bastard! This is all your fault!"

Without a warning Hans pointed his gun at him and pulled the trigger. Bullets sprayed at the android. The _clang clang clang_ against his tin shell was violent and forceful, knocking him back a little but leaving him unharmed otherwise since his entire bodywork was bullet-proof. Before the ammunition went out, Hans stopped the futile effort. The android was about to flash a grin at him but then the puffin moved the gun away from his face, lowered it, and put it between Clemson's shoulder blades. "How about now?"

With a smirk Hans watched the last shade of color drain from Mea's face as he pulled Clemson closer to his chest with one paw and then raised the other in a capitulating gesture.

The puffin chuckled. "I'm sorry, dear. But if you don't want to work with me, it means you're working against me, and I can't tolerate that. Not if –."

Suddenly the bang from the elevator doors penetrated the silence around them, cutting him short. Both opponents turned to stare at the familiar figure stepping out.

"Skipper…!" The puffin backed off a few steps as the penguin leader approached them. Skipper positioned himself opposite him in a way they had Clemson and Mea between them.

"Move out, man!" he hissed at Mea, "You're in my firing line!"

But the android wouldn't budge. He lifted Clemson a little, holding him up to the leader.

"What's with him?" he asked shakily, "Is he destroyed?"

"What? – No, no. No, he's not." Although every inch of his body screamed at him to keep his eyes glued to the enemy, Skipper took his time to remove the dart from Clemson's fur and then jerked his flipper back towards where he'd come from. "He might not survive another shot, though, so you better get him out of here pronto." He lowered his voice a little as he leaned down to the android. "Listen, my men are stuck on the second floor. You're the only one strong enough to open that blocked door; it's the 237th. Go help them – and in return I'll keep this freak from following you."

He looked firmly into the artificial eyes, doubting for a moment whether the android would follow his order. But then he got to his feet, holding Clemson tight against him, and then hurried away in the direction Skipper had shown.

For a moment it looked as if Hans would try to hold them back; Skipper got into battle stance already, but then the puffin stayed where he was. After a long time the penguin leader found himself alone again face to face with his old arch enemy.

Just like back then, the two avian foes had stayed behind all on their own.

Just like back then, Skipper was armed with nothing but a herring.

"You sick, twisted fool!" he hissed at Hans, "What do you think you're doing, running around and trying to shoot animals like that?!"

Hans cast his gaze down for a moment before his golden eyes looked straight at Skipper again from under his long black lashes. "It's Savio's game, not mine. But I can't afford to lose it. And neither can you, so you had better have let me done my duties!"

"Nonsense! I'm not one of Savio's damn _pawns_ like you are. – You know, when I came here, I believed all of you Hobokeners just played along with his scheme because you don't have the guts to stand up to him. But that's not what it's about. You're _enjoying_ it, aren't you!"

"That's not true! How can you believe such things of me?" There was a regretful tone to Hans' voice, but his expression gave away nothing.

Skipper kept his gaze riveted on the puffin's slender figure standing in the center of the path towards the exit, carefully watching his every move.

"Because I know you, Hans. You've always been like that – a spineless intriguer, a hypocrite who's game for anything if it comes to gaining wealth and reputation. Just like you did back then in the Copenhagen Zoo – using corruption and unscrupulousness to climb the social ladder inside the zoo hierarchy, that's your way! You did it here all over again in just the same manner; and now you're Savio's right hand man, and the second richest animal in the zoo, aren't you!"

The puffin held his pointed glare for several pulsing seconds. Then he lowered his head.

"Oh, Skipper, your words truly are hurtful. I don't deny that I did it… but I sincerely regret it. – Come, let us talk in peace." He lowered the gun and approached him.

Skipper didn't move an inch out of his battle stance.

"I admit it was like you said. At the beginning this game was really fun to play because thanks to my good relations with Savio I would always come out on top. I always had enough pink with me; I never had to fear I'd be the one chosen as a victim. – But the price for this kind of safety is too high. I can't take this any longer," he whined, looking pathetically vulnerable now, "Constantly having all my efforts channeled into winning him for me… This feeling of permanent threat; the way Savio turned our zoo population into a state of intricate mass surveillance; the certainty that one day it'll be my turn, no matter how much I endeavor to behave as required – it's literally killing my heart. I feel myself being diminished here every day. I'm so dried up I don't even remember what it feels like to interact with guys you'd actually call _friends_."

Skipper gave a scornful sneer. "Well, too bad I don't believe you a word you say! Because you don't regret anything you've done. You're just looking for a way out, now that things are getting nasty, because you obviously fail to pay Savio whatever you owe him, so you threaten to fall into disgrace with him. And now you see what you've gotten yourself into, and that you can't make it out of here alone, so you need the help of my team."

Hans had come as close to him as he knew Skipper would tolerate without feeling the urge to attack him. When he looked at him now Skipper could see something lingering behind his eyes, something that his conciliatory words cunningly kept concealed.

"Yes, Skipper, I do want to be on a team with you again! But for honest reasons… I don't cherish a life like this. I'm sick of all this lying and killing. I want to know friendship again, like earlier…" – He lowered his voice a little. "…Friendship with you."

"Well, you should've thought about that _before_ you made me Denmark's public enemy number one!" Skipper furiously clenched his flippers at the memories now coming back in full force.

"Oh, you should've stayed in that _Vridsløselille_ prison, where they'd taken you before I left – that's where you belong!"

Hans shook his head, his eyes on fire now. "I've already told you, whatever happened in Denmark... I'm sorry about it. _Jeg skulle aldrig have gjort det! Jeg gør det aldrig mere!_ – I should've never done it! I'll never do it again!"

"Oh yeah?! More of your pretty little lies? – And look, there you go, ready to do it all again! You wanted to kill these two lemurs…"

"But… but they're not your men!"

"No, they're not! And I don't even trust them! But you knew they're working for me right now. You knew that even though I wished I had just any other option, I need their help, just like I need it from my men. And still you were ready to take them from me, just like back then in Copenhagen… when you took from me –." Suddenly his voice faltered, and he didn't finish.

The puffin didn't fail to notice. A peculiar, half-mocking smile came over his face. "But this is so long ago… This was something completely different back then. You can't compare this."

He stepped up yet a little closer when he saw that Skipper had let his flippers fall limp to his sides and made no other offensive move.

"– Don't you remember our time before the Copenhagen Incident? When we were still working together? We've been friends for far too long to let this come between us forever… least of all in times like these."

"No." Skipper firmly shook his head and then turned his back on him. He knew the puffin. A few words he could obviously well afford, a glib apology, but it wouldn't suffice to take away everything that had happened. "The Copenhagen Incident was the end of it, Hans. The plans we had went all wrong, and they went wrong because of _you_. Because I thought I could trust you. Maybe I was at fault back then, too – we all made mistakes and so did I, but you did something we can never turn back right. No one can; the blame is on me until this very day, and this is all your fault!"

"But Skipper, think about what you're saying! You and I, we were the secret agent dream team. We were inseparable. The envy of all. We never argued – always had a great time together. We understood each other's personalities and respected and embraced our differences. We fought together. Won together! I thought we'd never part. – Come now, Skipper." Hans was so close to him now the beguiling cherry scent of his perfume was surrounding his former leader and friend, and he batted his eyelashes in a way Skipper found plainly annoying. "Together we can make it away from here. And I won't let you down this time, I promise."

"Yeah, that's what you're saying now! And at the end of the journey, it'll be me who's bleeding again, ending up again with nothing left, with no more aces up my flipper to set the things right you messed up. Find a new one to fool! I will never, ever, _ever_ be friends again with someone as two-faced and treacherous as you!"

He pushed him away; Hans looked surprised at his sudden furious outburst. But Skipper couldn't help it; he had hated him for this for so long, and he could feel the heat of it still smolder deep inside him now that everything had been brought up again.

"Get away from me," he yelled at Hans, "Get out of my life! The end of our mission in Denmark was the end of our time together, of our time as allies, as friends, once and for all. We can't reverse what has happened, can't turn back time, and if I could, then I'd see to it that I'd put an end to your schemes much sooner than I did, and I wouldn't care if you were the one then who doesn't make it out alive!"

Hans withdrew a few steps as he shouted the words so loudly they seemed to bounce off the walls, the echoes falling back like slaps against him.

"– All the dreams we had… and now we've left nothing but this mess behind. Nothing remains but bad memories, evasions, and lies, loads of lies I have to tell to everyone, even to my own men!" – Skipper paused and breathed deeply, painfully. – "I won't ever find a need to stay with you again – not even this purgatory of a zoo, the situation in which we're now, is enough. What you've done to me is inexcusable. I've headed to the limit with you; even if you were honest, which I don't believe, I couldn't ever be your friend again after all that has happened. I simply can't forgive you for having betrayed me like this. I should've never trusted you or worked with you – I regret I've ever done it, and I'm definitely not going to do it again. It's over!"

And he wanted to leave, but Hans stood in his way. "I'm sorry," he said, slowly raising his gun again until it pointed at Skipper's chest. "In this case, I can't let you go. I still need these two victims, and when I've got you, I've at least been able to cut my debt in half."

Skipper's eyes flicked from the puffin's face to the gun and back. "You liar." His sneer turned to a snarl. "Seeking friendship with me, eh? – You dirty, damn _liar!_ "

Hans giggled, but only for a second – then Skipper whipped around and lodged a gut-wrenching kick to Hans' stomach, landing a hard punch that sent his foe to his knees and his gun flying across the cement, from where Skipper snatched it before his adversary could get it back. After another hard kick to the puffin's side, Skipper bent down and twisted his right flipper behind his back, causing him so much pain he collapsed and screamed for the penguin to let him go.

"Okay," Hans panted when he was finally free again, "Okay then!" He raised both wings a little in order to indicate he wasn't interested in continuing the fight any longer. "So, we won't be together then. – And you know what? I think I should be glad about it."

He turned away, ready to retreat, but then glanced back over his shoulder at his adversary one more time. "After all, you showed me you're not a skipper who can take care of his men."

He fled out of the garage without another word.

Skipper watched him leave, frozen to the spot.

Suddenly everything inside him was numb. He didn't even realize the gun he was holding slowly escaped his flipper until it dropped to the ground with a loud clatter.

The sound ripped him from his thoughts. He winced a little. Then he grabbed the gun and belly-slid back into the hospital as fast as he could.


	14. Chapter 13 - All The Dead Lie Down

CHAPTER 13

 **ALL THE DEAD LIE DOWN**

Sometime in the middle of the night Clemson woke up with a terrible headache. He lifted himself a little and opened his eyes. He was relieved to see the blurred but familiar outlines of his cave; he was in his bed, warm and cozy, with the leaves tucked around him. Mea had connected himself to the socket and was motionlessly resting and recharging next to his bed.

Clemson blinked at the android with bleary eyes. "Mea… Oh, dear Sky Spirits, what happened –?"

The android resumed from hibernation when Clemson talked to him. "Hans stunned you with a sedative dart, but one of the penguins helped us out. He wanted me to return the favor and help him rescue his men in exchange… of course I didn't do it. I guess they're still in the hospital now, but I left to bring you back here right away."

Clemson sank back, burying his aching head deep into the pillow, but a smile played around his lips. "You didn't help them…?"

"Hell, no! What do you think? If they stay in the hospital and get sacrificed, that's really the best thing that can happen to us. We'd have some hope of getting rid of them once and for all, and maybe Savio will be satisfied then, too, and Hans is finally going to leave you alone… That trickster! I'll make him pay, I swear!"

Clemson fidgeted with the cassette that had caused them both so much trouble.

"I shouldn't have underestimated him like that… I should've known he's very well capable of such a move. – How did you find out that this tape was a fake after all?"

"The small penguin with light blue eyes and British accent helped me."

"Private." – Clemson moved over and patted the mattress next to him, beckoning for Mea to join him. – "Gosh, I bet when the penguins come back, Skipper will be so mad at us because you didn't help them…"

The android plugged himself off and crawled beside him and then drew the leaves over him, surrounding them both with their soothing warmth. "Oh, but the chances are high that they won't come back at all." He smirked and slipped one arm around his maker and trailed warm fingers down his neck. "Don't worry about it."

He leaned over and covered Clemson's lips in a fervent kiss, pulling him closer as he bent to him, and Clemson surrendered to his touch, his headache and all the dark thoughts melting away at that very moment.

A soft moan escaped his lips, and Mea smiled. He was so lovely to look at in his passion, his cheeks flushed, his red eyes glowing, heavy-lidded and filled with pleasure. Clemson gasped as the android's touch was sending waves of fiery delight through him. Mea drew him tighter against his hard, tall frame as his lips covered Clemson's, warm and insistent. Giving himself completely over to him, Clemson held on to him in desperate hunger, willing this moment to never end, kissing him with all the passion he knew he possessed. Mea moved between his legs, stretching out Clemson's body under his own, and Clemson whispered hoarse words into the android's ear, urging him on. His breath came out in ragged gasps, and at first Mea surely believed he was moaning in pleasure, until he saw his lips were trembling and realized that Clemson was crying, tears flowing silently down his cheeks.

"What's wrong…?"

Clemson just bit his lip and wrapped his legs tighter around him. "Nothing. Keep going," he urged him on in a choked voice. But then he cried harder and turned his face away.

Now, for the first time in a long while, he was feeling safe, and in that moment it all caught up to him. This had been so much, and he was beginning to break down from it all. The Alchimus Hospital. The thought of having lost Mea. The Alchimus Hospital. Getting almost killed by Hans. The thought of having to see Charlie again, how it had been the last time, how he had still suffered from the torture for weeks, terrified, worn out, and shivering, and the sound of the chainsaw, which he felt would be indelibly and forever imprinted on his mind… The Alchimus Hospital, where evil knew no boundaries, where it washed over all of them until they drowned in it. All the animals in this zoo would be taken there again and again until they'd be gradually worn out by the repetition of the torture, until they just couldn't take it any longer. And then they'd die and become burned to ashes in the very bowels of this hell house, skulls and bones catching alight in the crackling and roaring of flames, no graves, no words to say, just another number scratched out in Chainsaw Charlie's book.

Mea pulled free and lay on the crumpled leaves beside him. When he reached out to hold him, Clemson hid his face in his paws, his crying unbridled now. He'd thought he could handle it well. But now it all fell apart, and he lost it. The pain, the fear, Hans' ruse, and all the lies… He couldn't hold it back any longer. He lay with his paws and face across the other lemur's chest, heaving painful, soul-shattering sobs. Not knowing what to do, Mea held him, rocking him gently until his breath slowed down a little.

"I didn't want this," Clemson eventually managed to say, "I'm sorry. This would've never happened if I'd given you as many reasons to trust me as I should have. If I had, you would've never, never believed I was going to run off with someone like Clover!"

"No, it's my fault." Mea looked down, fidgeting with the frayed end of a loose wire hanging from his arm. After a minute he looked at him again, cheeks lightly flushed with embarrassment. "I, uh… I should have known you wouldn't do anything to hurt me. I should've listened to you and trusted you instead of acting like a savage…"

Clemson could see his eyes were faintly glowing and tired, yet shadowed with concern.

"How could I've ever wanted to destroy you," he murmured, "You saved my life. You took care of me. You… loved me." He choked back another flood of tears. "– You're all I have, Mea. Only now do I realize what a grave mistake it was that I failed to show you this."

The android raised himself a little further and tightened his arm around Clemson's waist.

"Shh… don't worry. It's alright now."

"Nothing's right! They tried to separate us, Mea. They even got us so far as to believe we'd be ready to kill one another!" he spat out barely taking a breath, "Who knows what they'll come up with next… The penguins _will_ come back for sure. They're too good to get killed just like that; they've already made it in and out of the hospital once without even meeting Charlie – you witnessed it yourself –, and I bet they'll do it again. And then they'll be mad… And Clover! She tricked me so thoroughly."

"Bitch!" Mea seethed under his breath.

"– Everything she's said and done has been a cold-blooded calculation to draw us apart from each other. Who knows what twisted surprises she has yet in store? – And Savio… You know that maniac! He'll be unforgiving toward anyone who's in debt to him. That means Hans still won't leave us alone… for now we might have gotten away, but he sure as hell won't forget it's our fault that Savio is giving him a hard time now, and the day will come when he'll break us down for this, it's just a matter of time…!"

Mea tightened his protective embrace and held him gently, and Clemson melted into his arms, heavy sobs wracking him once more. Trying his best to absorb his fear, Mea stroked his fur and kissed his lips between soothing words until he eventually calmed down. Then he pushed the sheets away and raised himself to his full size before he took Clemson by the shoulders.

"Listen, you're right. We've got too many enemies around here. We need to get away from here as fast as we can."

Clemson nodded and unfolded his paws into the soft, auburn curls of fur on Mea's chest.

"But the helicopter isn't repaired yet, and neither are you… Until we haven't found the error in your system, you won't have your old strength back. And then Clover is still there… She won't let us get away –." Clemson thought about their last encounter. "Where is she anyway? The last thing I saw of her was how she was battling Parker…"

"Well, apparently he didn't stand a chance against her. I saw her when we came out of the hospital. She's surveying our habitat from the roof of that storeroom like the penguins have probably ordered her to, just as if nothing had happened." Mea got off the bed and reached under it for the ammunition box.

"Listen, I might not be as strong as I used to be, but the tables are turned now! Julien and Mort are gone and the others are still looking for them, so they won't be there to stop us; the only two of their group who aren't in the hospital right now are Clover and that small penguin, Private. I guess he won't get in our way – and if he will, this won't be much of a problem –, and Clover is certainly weakened from the fight with Parker. I say now is the best chance of escape we can get, so let's get on with it!"

Clemson watched him reload his handgun. "Wait, do you want to fight her?"

"You bet I will!" Mea smirked. "Oh, I swear, she'll regret ever having messed with us like that! –Listen, once she's put out of commission, I'll climb over the zoo wall. I know there's still that electric fence… but I live on electricity, so what danger could it pose to me? I'll be able to break through it and then open the gate for you from the other side."

But Clemson shook his head and grabbed the android's paw, trying to hold him back. "This girl is a killer. She'll shred you up!"

"No way. I'm going to teach her a lesson, you'll see!" Mea placed a tender kiss to his maker's paw and then released it. "Wait for me at the entrance of our habitat. Once I've taken her down, we might need to hurry."

His maker hesitated but then nodded. "Okay… Take care!"

* * *

"What do you mean, he wasn't here?!"

Skipper was back on the second floor in front of Charlie's office, expecting to meet up with Mea and his men there; yet he found the door still shut and stuck as before. "I knew I shouldn't have relied on the help of that techno zombie!" he cursed to himself, "– Kowalski, please tell me the helicopter will be finished soon, so we're not dependent on Clemson and that guy _any longer in any way!_ "

"I'd love to, but I fear I'd have to lie," the voice of his second-in-command answered him from inside, "Anyway, while you were away we found out that the lock isn't actually broken. There should still be a chance to open this door after all without having to tear it down; it's just that something inside the lock seems to be slightly canted. Maybe, with a small tool…"

Skipper had put his ear to the wood of the door and was listening to their voices with closed eyes. "Doesn't Rico have a wrench or something with him?"

"Nuh-uh," came the rogue penguin's answer.

"He says all our tools are still back in the storeroom."

"Blast it!"

"Skipper, did you hear that terrible sound?" – That was Maurice's voice now, faint and scared. – "Charlie is around here somewhere, and he's at work again…! We decided to wait for you right here because we didn't dare to go any further down that passageway when we heard this."

"Yes! Didn't I tell you it wasn't a good idea to fly solo in this devilish place?!" – This was Kowalski again, and now he, too, sounded worried. Skipper was surprised he hadn't heard anything; he guessed it was because he'd been so far down in the garage. He was just about to tell them not to panic – then suddenly a cone of light crawled over the walls and hit him from behind. He almost gasped. It was the cone of a flashlight!

It was thrown up from somewhere down the staircase, most likely from the first floor. Skipper hurried to the handrail and leaned over it. He strained his eyes to peer into the darkness.

"Hey!" he yelled down, "Whoever you are, that flashlight isn't yours, pal! Give it back!"

No answer. The bright cone of light danced over the walls and ceiling and then was gone. Darkness surrounded him once more. For a few minutes he was disoriented but then regained his balance and sense of direction. Then he saw it flash up again – following it with his eyes, he hurried down the stairs as fast as he could. He knew that whoever had taken his flashlight, if he lost him now, he wasn't very likely to ever find him again in this maze. Listening for any little noise that'd help him to locate the fugitive, he moved out on the corridor of the first floor again. After another minute of waddling ahead cautiously, he halted. Something had piqued his ears. The source of the sound seemed to linger behind the door of a men's restroom nearby.

Skipper took a deep breath and entered the room. Unlike the rest of the hospital it was surprisingly well lit. He padded in carefully, hesitantly. Suddenly he noticed something wet at his feet. He swallowed the lump in his throat as he looked down. With complete detachment, as if those webbed feet had nothing to do with him, he noted that they both stood in puddles of blood seeping out from the crack under one of the cabin doors. It was the same cabin the strange sound appeared to be emanating from: something inside it was… scratching. Scraping. Claws grating on tiled walls.

The cabin door was ajar but the interior too dark to see anything clearly, and Skipper felt a mounting dread as he approached it. "H–hello?" he called, "Is someone in there?"

He waited. Seconds passed. Dead silence.

"Hello," a friendly voice then answered from inside the cabin, "Whoever that is – could you please turn on the lights?"

There was the sound again. It silenced for a moment and then started again. Skipper edged forward, closer to it. His breathing increased with ragged intensity. Thrown out from the inside of the cabin, the cone of his flashlight danced on the ceiling. He plucked up all his courage and then, with a quivering flipper, pushed the cabin door open.

There was a lobster inside. He stood before him with his back turned to him; when he heard the door open, he slowly began turning around. Skipper was barely able to suppress a scream. Where his eyes had been, there were just two bloody slits. Deep red blood squirted from the empty eye sockets, creating a large pool on the tiled floor. Blind as he was, the lobster was scratching the toilet walls with his pincers in an attempt to find his way out.

The most shocking thing about his appearance, though, was that _he simply didn't seem to be aware_ of the limitations of his blindness.

"Would you mind turning the lights on?" he asked Skipper again.

"They _are_ on," Skipper replied, his voice barely audible now, "You just can't see them."

"Why couldn't I, if they were on? It's not that I'm blind or something. It's just that everything's dark and I can't see you anywhere. So would you please care for some light?"

He reached his left pincer holding the flashlight out to where he guessed Skipper would be. It was still switched on, producing powerful light.

"– This is yours, right? I'm sorry I took it. I just wanted some form of light. But you can have it back… It's broken anyways. I clicked and clicked the switch, but there's no light."

Skipper took it, his flipper shivering slightly. Along the lobster's arms, right over his pincers, he saw dozens of tiny red dots, each about the size of the head of a needle. Perhaps he didn't feel anything because he'd been given overdoses of painkilling injections.

"Who are you?" Skipper heard himself ask.

"Red Two. I used to work for Dr. Blowhole. But on a mission here in New Jersey I got caught by humans and was brought to this zoo." More blood dripped from the lobster's empty eyes as he tilted his head a little. "And you are…?"

"Skipper."

"Skipper? – Wait, aren't you one of the penguins?" The lobster got into battle stance; however, unable to locate Skipper's position exactly, he was facing the toilet wall to his left. "That means you're my enemy!"

Skipper shook his head, swallowing. _I sure as hell won't start a fight with you now!_

"Listen, can't we put this to rest until we've found a way out of here? Right now I'm as lost as you are; so why not join our forces to save our lives? After that, we'll still have time to battle."

Red Two hesitated, but then nodded. "Okay."

Just then the room around them began shaking. Objects started to emit strange sympathetic sounds as they responded to the vibrations – accompanied by the unrelenting, deeply threatening noise of a whirring chainsaw somewhere in the distance. This had to be the sound Maurice had been talking about before. "Hoover Dam, isn't this –!"

"Yeah, that sound is coming from the operating room," Red Two confirmed, "Kind of horrible, isn't it. I've just been there; believe me, it's even worse when you're up close."

Skipper had just recovered from the dreadful sight of the eyeless lobster when a new wave of nausea rose to his chest. Hearing Chainsaw Charlie at work meant there was another victim being tortured right now –. He leaned back against the wall, feeling light-headed.

"I thought he'd lost his chainsaw to that lemur…!"

Red Two spread his pincers questioningly. "What do you mean, 'his chainsaw'? He's got at least a dozen of them up there!"

"Oh. …I see." Skipper took a deep breath before he asked him then, "When you were in that operating room, did you see two lemurs there?" – The lobster shook his head.

"No, there weren't any. There were a lot of animals, but no lemurs."

Skipper heaved a heavy sigh of relief. "Tell me, where the hell _is_ that room?!" he asked the lobster, unable to hide a slight tremor of excitement in his voice.

"The operating room? Why, it's on the third floor, of course."

"What…? But I thought the third floor was broken!"

"It's not. The humans took me there not even an hour ago. At least that's what I believe, because I don't really remember what happened before everything turned dark…."

"Alright. Alright, listen." Skipper was thinking things through as fast as he could. As he was trying to avoid looking at the lobster's empty eyes, his gaze fell to his pincers again, and he had a bright idea. "I've lost some of my men in this labyrinth of a hospital. Three of them are locked in a room upstairs. Since we don't have any tools, we can't get the lock open; our flippers and paws are too soft to pick it. But you, you're a lobster; I guess your pincers would do well. Will you help me free them, and then we can look for a way out of here together?"

Red Two agreed. Skipper told him he would go ahead and lead him with his voice, and so they made their way up to the second floor again; with the help of the flashlight this was much easier now. Back in front of Charlie's office, he found his men in anxiety because of his sudden, unexpected departure earlier.

"Skipper, where the hell have you been?!" he heard Maurice cry out almost angrily. "In a place like this, you can't just run off like that without a warning and leave the rest of us closed up in here, waiting to die any minute!"

"The last thing we heard from you was how you called to someone outside there," he heard Kowalski's voice then, and Rico, too, confirmed his disapproval by uttering some grunts, "We didn't know who it was or why you ran away at all. It could've well been because Charlie was after you!"

"I'm sorry," Skipper called back, feeling a twinge of guilt at the concern in their voices, "It all went so fast… But now I've found someone who can help us!"

And he lifted the lobster up to the door handle, guided one of his pincers carefully to the lock, and prayed he could make it. Armed with surprisingly sharp teeth as his pincer was, Red Two was easily able to pick it without hurting himself; he twisted his pincer once, and the lock clicked open. With a start, the door gave way against Skipper's push, and then they were reunited. They fell into each other's arms, very nearly crying with the sheer joy of being together safely again.

"I'm sorry," Skipper whispered, "I shouldn't have swum alone in here."

The rest of the group greeted Red Two as well with great joy and gratitude; none of them was frightened about his blinded eyes as it was so dark in the room that they couldn't see them.

"Now let's find Ringtail and Sad Eyes," Skipper finally said, "Red Two here said he didn't see them on the third floor either – this floor is perfectly intact by the way, which means that note and caution tape in the staircase before has been put there only to mislead us or anyone else reading it –, so I'm pretty sure they went down here."

Kowalski nodded, studying the floor plans again. "Guess so. According to those plans I can't think of any other way they could've possibly taken."

Together they descended the long passageway behind the wardrobe now, the flashlight beam shining ahead of them, stretching out in the darkness. Joining their forces, they managed to push open the wooden door at its end, rushing a few steps into the next room, the deepest place of the cellar under the hospital. They breathed heavily, theirs hearts pounding. Standing rooted to the floor, they tried to recover their composure and to orientate themselves. Nothing moved here. No one breathed.

They were standing in front of an unpainted cement block wall with a large square door in the center. To one side of the door a shallow shelf built from the same blocks jutted out. There were a temperature gauge and a timer, and two labeled buttons above it. On the floor to the other side of the door various size racks leaned against the wall.

"Kowalski, analysis." Skipper's voice was but a whisper.

"It… it appears to be…" Kowalski didn't manage to finish his sentence, but it wasn't necessary either. Although none of them had ever seen one before in their lives, they were all well aware of what they were facing.

A crematory.

There were traces of ash on the floor so they knew that it was in use.

They had reached the bowels of hell, the basement of the Alchimus Hospital. This room had to be Chainsaw Charlie's darkest, most terrible secret: the place where all the victims that hadn't survived his experiments were brought to, where all the mysteriously disappeared zoo inhabitants had ended up in.

"Hoover Dam." Even Skipper's face was pale all of a sudden.

Kowalski just put his flippers to his beak and said nothing.

Rico needed some time to understand what he was looking at; when he did, however, he stared at his feet and fell very silent.

Maurice was sweating, cold and sudden. Icy shudders went up and down his spine. He knew that if he ever had to listen to the sound of it operating, it would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Suddenly there came a sound from the inside of the crematory chamber.

It echoed between the metal walls of the incinerator.

They had endured everything so far; bravely they'd faced and survived all the horrors of Alchimus, and everything Charlie had thrown at them – but now they screamed out loud, all of them. Only Red Two remained standing in front of the crematory in silence, having no idea what he was looking at, while the others scampered back against the wall, their eyes wide with shock.

Then the square door was opened from the inside.

An ash-covered figure climbed out.


	15. Chapter 14 - No Escape

CHAPTER 14

 **NO ESCAPE**

"Maurice!"

The older lemur got the shock of his life when the black figure called his name out loud and then came running towards him. He cried out in sheer horror as black arms were flung around him – and, a moment later, melted into the familiar embrace.

"Julien...!" he finally gasped, his voice faltering and cracking with emotion, "Oh, Julien, it's you…!" He eased free of their embrace and gently wiped the ash from his king's face.

Yellow eyes looked back at him, bright and chipper. "Of course it's me, Maurice! I didn't mean to startle you; I'm sorry." Julien drew his advisor back into their embrace and huddled closely against his chest. "I'm so glad you're here. – I'm sorry I didn't listen to you, Momo. Please don't be mad. I know you told me not to go here… but I wanted to find Mort, and –."

The little mouse lemur now climbed out of the incinerator as well and hopped up to the two older lemurs, laughing happily. Just like Julien's, his fur was entirely covered in ash from whisker to toe. The three penguins watched them hug and exchanged glances of great relief about their friends being alive and well, yet a cold prickle still jabbed their neck feathers at this encounter. Skipper took the lemur king by his shoulders. "Julien…! Why did you go down here? – Don't you know what this place is?!"

Julien looked surprised but then smiled at him. His round, brown eyes glimmered with innocence. "No, of course not! How should I? It's you guys who have the plans to this maze!"

He shrugged. "Well, apparently it's a good place to hide."

From a purely logical point of view he was right: the basement of a hospital was often a place reserved for corpses. Most of the hospital's employees avoided the area like the plague, so if one wanted to avoid meeting any of them, this was probably the best place to go.

Yet Skipper could barely believe that the lemur king was so oblivious to his immediate surroundings; at the mere sight of this facility every other animal would've turned tail and fled head over heels! "No, I mean, look at this! It's…" – But behind Julien's back, Maurice shook his head, indicating him not to continue.

Skipper understood. "Oh, never mind. How did you two get here?" he asked instead.

"We were running away from the doctors," Mort said.

Julien nodded. "Yes, we met inside the building somewhere in one of the rooms behind the little back door when we suddenly heard humans coming across the backyard. We ran further inside because we were scared that they could come in through the back door and see us. We were running like hell because there were more humans inside the hospital, and they chased us over many, many stairs and long hallways, and in that one room we wanted to hide behind a wardrobe and then found out there was a secret door behind it. So we opened it and went down a little, and suddenly we were here and saw that… thing, whatever it is." – He waved his paw at the crematory. – "And we thought that if we hid inside there, they wouldn't find us too soon. And they didn't! They didn't even follow us down here. So it was a good idea to come here, don't you think?"

The penguins only exchanged more glances at this, shook their heads, and said nothing.

"Oh, Julien…" Maurice ran a paw through the cheek fur of the younger lemur, who was gazing back at him, smiling, looking so utterly happy, so ignorant. He tried to fight back tears of relief but couldn't. He pulled Julien close, and the king's body melted into his. Julien held him tight, and Maurice hid his face in his shoulder, trying to stifle his sobs.

Julien's happiness turned into sorrow in an instant. "Please don't cry, Momo," he murmured, his own voice quivering, "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you… I didn't mean to make you worry like this and cause you so much trouble! I… It'll never happen again, I promise!"

Maurice wiped tears from his face and then ran his paw through Julien's silver fur again, drawing a shuddering breath. "Oh, Julien, I'm just so glad you're alright," he said with a smile, and then he took the king's paw in his and held it tenderly.

"Hey, do you guys hear that?" Red Two had moved a little apart from the group and put his ear to the wall, listening closely. Everyone fell silent. They heard wild shouting and the sounds of fighting from outside, the exterior noises muffled by the thick stone walls.

"That's Clover's voice!" said Maurice, "What the hell is going on out there?!"

"We must be close to the outer walls of the hospital, or else we couldn't hear them from here," Kowalski analyzed.

Skipper nodded and looked around himself. "Yes. But we're somewhere in the cellar right now, so of course there aren't any windows here… But I remember there were some in Charlie's office; we should be able to get out through there." He took a look at the floor plans, reassuring himself that he had pinpointed their location correctly. "Let's go back up." – Just then they heard another long, ragged cry outside. – "Hurry!"

* * *

Clover was surveying the lemur habitat from the roof of the storeroom, wondering what took the others so long.

She wished she would've gotten a chance to join the search for her king; yet she understood her duty here was equally important. The enemy must never be underestimated. She calculated that letting her guard down on Clemson even for no more than a minute could well be enough to entail serious disaster. After what he had done to her king, she estimated him capable of almost any evil deed she could imagine, so she did her best to foil any possible plans of action of his as quickly and thoroughly as she could. She was more than pleased to see that her plan to separate him from his dangerous ally had worked out so well; even if she hadn't been able to fully turn them into enemies, she could at least hope that they'd continue fighting for a good while.

She had barely finished the thought when she heard someone call out for her.

She lifted her gaze to the top of the Alchimus Hospital – and could hardly believe her eyes.

Clemson was up there, and he was waving down to her.

How had he been able to get up there so fast she hadn't even noticed him? She blinked a few times in utter surprise: of course _she_ had been able to defeat her attacker easily – she had even held herself back; yet that platypus would still need a couple of days to fully recover from the injuries she had inflicted on him –, but she would've never believed Clemson capable of doing the same to Hans. Hardly an hour ago she'd found him in his cave, weakened and desperate, huddled in a corner of the destroyed interior, before Hans had taken him away – and now he was prancing around there on the roof again, hale and hearty! – And downright impertinent.

"YO, BITCH!" he yelled down at her, "I'm going to run away from this fucking zoo now, and guess who isn't going to stop me!"

 _Hm. The guy is tougher than I thought_ , Clover calmly reflected, _but I'm going to handle this easily._ She swiftly headed over to the hospital and climbed up the rainwater gutter in a few smooth movements.

"Finally!" the red lemur teased her when she came face to face with him, "I was beginning to wonder if you'd still dare to challenge me in this century or if you were just too chicken."

Clover cracked her knuckles. "I have no idea what's going on in your twisted mind this time, but you're not going anywhere."

He chuckled. "Let's see you stop me!"

Clover raised an eyebrow. "You want a fight? Fine. – I'll take you on any day!" She could feel the beating of her heart quicken in passionate anticipation of the coming battle and victory. "How I've been waiting to finish you off once and for all! – Make your move, and I'll rip your arm off and beat you to death with the bleeding end, so help me Frank!"

A haughty smile curved the other lemur's lips as he folded his arms across his chest. "You have no idea who you're up against!"

Her gaze fell to his feet and found them laced in roller-skates. She rolled her eyes. "In fact I do… Mea. I would've preferred the real Clemson, but it'll still be a pleasure to recycle you." She bared her teeth, her lips curving into a malicious smirk. "You did a fine number on your maker back there, by the way. Thank you very much."

This drove all the mockery from his face, leaving nothing but terrible anger. "You're the reason we got into so much trouble," he growled, "You're going to regret this for the rest of your life!"

She sighed soundlessly to herself. _There goes my plan._ "Ph. I can shred you to a useless heap of screws and nails with my eyes closed!"

"Oh, don't underestimate me! I know kung-fu."

"So do I."

"And karate, too."

"So do I!"

"I have an X7 processor."

"Uhm…"

"Ha! Owned you." The android locked his sensors onto her. "Target set. Initiate close-range battle mode."

"What…?" – Without a warning he raised his gun, aimed, and fired a salvo of shoots at her, missing her only by a whisker. – _Okay. We started._ "Alright, then let's do it!"

With a lightning-fast jump Clover bridged the distance between them, then jabbed out with the heel of her paw – and missed him. She leapt forward again and this time managed to kick the gun out of his paw and then whipped around to deliver a solid punch to his right flank, knocking him down for at least a few seconds. But then he was up again, reaching for his gun that lay at the very edge of the roof – Clover leapt over and hurried to send it down into nowhere with another kick.

"Ha! Too easy."

He growled at her but moved back in a defensive gesture. "Don't get carried away."

He withdrew into the darkness at the other end of the roof and did not reappear for a while. Unfortunately the gun wasn't his only weapon – he obviously had something else in store for obstinate enemies: when he sprinted out of the shadows toward her again, he was wielding a metal crowbar. – "Gotcha!"

The crowbar flashed up in the moonlight when he lifted it over his head with a malicious grin. Then it flashed down – and struck nothing but air. Clover flipped backwards in the last possible moment of escape. She landed, her brain pulsing against her temples.

 _Too close!_ Her heart pumped like never before; she had to admit he was more than a match for her in both strength and speed. The android could move faster than any normal lemur. Also his reflexes were sharper and his punches much harder – from all the previous fights Clover had ever had against other animals she could tell there was an unnatural amount of power behind them. If he were Clemson, he would've been down after two of her attacks of maximum force – but the android blocked all her punches effortlessly.

Without warning, he kicked her viciously in the ribs, knocking her onto her side. Clover gasped for breath and tried to push herself upright, but the android kicked her again. She lay sprawled with her face in the dirt, motionless for some seconds. Although she was far from preparing herself to taste defeat, she had to admit she'd perhaps overestimated herself.

But then she lurched back to her feet and attacked him again, a powerful, straight punch thrown with her left foot – which he deftly blocked. And then she couldn't help but gape in awe when he made a standing jump about 30 feet straight up in the air, turned a somersault, and then landed behind her on the roof with a wild, wicked laughter. There he preened and pranced, trying to provoke her. "Come and get me, sweetheart!"

They rushed at each other again head-on to become a fierce tangle of fists and feet. They rolled over the roof, wrestling hard.

"You're a dirty animal!" Mea cursed.

"And you're a talking toaster!" Only once she managed to break through his defense and strike his shoulder. It didn't seem to affect him – until she pushed him back harder, and he landed in the middle of a water puddle near the gutter. Blue sparks flew from the spot where she'd hit him before, and he muttered a curse. _The water…!_ But she had no time to finish the thought – he came charging straight at her, and the air was filled with their furious cries when they went down and tangled again, ceaselessly assaulting each other.

"Don't know when to quit, do you!" he hissed, swinging his crowbar. She evaded him but he whaled away wildly at her, each blow more savage than the previous. She was able to parry a few more attacks. But then, making a slight feint, he evaded her defense. Without much trouble he had her pinned down on the ground.

"Surrender now," he growled at her, "Don't make me kill you!"

He straddled her, but she managed to get one paw free. She slapped him across the face with all the strength she had. Effectively using the tiny moment of advantage she'd gained, she pushed her palms against his chest, giving him a shove that sent him flying backwards, freeing herself. "Don't worry; I'll get you yet!"

Triumph washed over her like a satin touch, encouraging her, giving her new strength. The next moment she was punching and kicking every inch of her foe, pushing him further and further backwards to the little water puddle. The android was fighting tooth and nail – yet he fell into it again, shooting red and white sparks all over the place.

"Curse you!" he hissed, " _Curse you_ , bitch!"

He stumbled forward and got to his knees and then tried to get up, but his wheeled feet slipped and he went down again, falling back into the puddle almost immediately. More sparks flew; his left paw began twitching uncontrollably.

"Aren't you a little old to be playing in puddles?" Clover laughed derisively. "In case your brilliant maker hasn't told you yet: water and electricity don't mix."

The android didn't answer. He gasped to catch his breath, the features of his face distorting as if he was in pain.

Clover guessed that the damage threatened to overload his inner electric circuits.

– And just when she thought she was about to win, he got up on shaky legs after all and then hurled himself forward, straight at her.

"Alright, you've had it, lady. We've played enough games now!"

He took hold of her arms and legs, lifted her easily off the ground – and threw her feet first off the roof. For a moment she believed it was over – she feared her every bone was going to shatter the moment her body would slam into the ground. She fought the cry that tore at her throat, but it forced itself free when about 20 feet below, she finally crashed into the asphalt.

The impact was brutal; it squeezed the air out of her lungs and made her gasp. Her backbone slammed right into the solid floor, sending an excruciating jolt of pain up her spine. Her momentum, however, saved her; it kept her in motion, cushioning the fall. As she slid along on the pavement, she felt the power drain out of her; she took a gulping breath, her body prickling and trembling, her fingertips snapping with the aftermath of the fall. She tried to leap to her feet and get back into battle, but all she managed was to flounder up into a sitting position. She sat swaying, nearly overcome by the pain that now began pulsing up and down her entire body. Darkness began edging her vision as she finally broke down.

Above her, the cruel lemur was yelping with glee and jumping around wildly, throwing his paws in the air, doing a crazy little victory dance.

"Is that all you got?!" she heard her enemy's voice far away, but she couldn't see him anymore; everything began to blur, to sink into a kind of gray fuzziness.

Now, defeat was staring her in the face, bitterly, mercilessly.

And then the world around her turned black.

* * *

Clemson couldn't believe what he'd just witnessed from the inside of his habitat. He leapt over the wall, rushing with glee to embrace the android.

"You made it!"

Mea smiled, his face brimming with pride. "Told you. But now let's get a move on!"

Holding each other's paws, they sped towards the zoo portal. They had no time to lose; looking over his shoulder, Clemson could see that behind them a group of Hoboken residents had already gathered around Clover. It was only a matter of time until they'd figure out what they were going to do. – And on top of that, just then the New Yorkers were coming back out of the hospital! All of them were safe and sound, and of course the penguins became aware of their escape attempt in a matter of seconds.

"Someone stop those lemurs!" Skipper's voice loudly, furiously echoed after Clemson and Mea as they ran for the portal with all their speed. It was locked as always.

Mea began climbing the golden bars all the way to the top of the zoo wall; his magnetic paws came in very handy for doing so. "I'll climb down on the other side and then open the door from outside," he called down to his maker.

Clemson watched him fidget with the wires of the electric fence. It didn't seem to affect him the way it would've affected an animal, but obviously he still wasn't able to get through it very fast. It took him a good while to wriggle through the barbed wire coils as he had to pause again and again to unhitch long strands of his fur if he became snagged.

"Okay, but hurry because –."

" _¡Caramba! ¿Qué está pasando aquí?_ What is happening here?"

Clemson whirled around, shock claiming his face – just then Savio, Hans, and Parker came rushing over the place towards him from the other side. Parker pointed at Mea, who was still struggling to climb through the fence atop of the wall.

"Look, one of the red lemurs is getting away!"

"Not on my watch!" Savio fumed with anger when he realized that the two lemurs were trying to flee. "No one escapes from my zoo unless I allow it!"

"Stop them!" Skipper yelled across the yard again, too, and Rico fired a warning shot with his bazooka, but the penguins were yet too far away – but Savio's group was not, and this time, although for different reasons, their goal was the same.

"Don't worry; they won't get far." – Hans drew his HANS-matic 9000 Mk II. The puffin was the best marksman in all of Hoboken. He never missed a shot. – "So you're bullet-proof, huh? Let's see if you're gamma-ray-proof, too. I wouldn't bet on it."

He raised his ameliorated gun, pointed it at Mea, and fired. A powerful photon bolt flew from it and struck the android, causing him to stumble. Sparks burst from the damaged spot. Two more shots went into Mea's left leg. With a loud cry the android reached for the bars of the portal for just any hold, desperately trying to keep his balance. The barbed wire ripped his artificial skin and scraped the iron bodywork beneath, tearing off little wires as he frantically grabbed for something to hold on to. His whole body shuddered and twitched each time he was hit.

"No," Clemson screamed, " _No!_ " He ran up to Hans, ready to throw himself at the puffin, but before he could reach him, Hans fired one more time – the photon ray hit Mea's waist, and when a blazing white flame darted up from his flank, Clemson knew he was lost.

The android tumbled over backwards and then fell down all the way he'd climbed up, and Clemson could see the red lights in his eyes fade even before he smashed into the ground. The impact was devastating. The sounds of crushing metal followed; screws and cogwheels poured out of the damaged body and spread all over the place in a pool of oil. More electric shocks were shaking the android, and then one last ragged cry passed his lips before he came to rest, black smoke rising from his body.

 _"How could you!"_ Clemson rushed at Hans and grabbed his neck in a stranglehold, "You bloody bastard! How could you do this?!"

The puffin tried to push him away. "Let me go," he hissed, "It was an order." – The wrinkle in his smirk told a different story.

"Enough!" Savio swept Clemson away from his opponent with his long tail and then circled its end around the lemur's chest and squeezed tight. Clemson gasped for breath.

"Just where did the two of you think you were going?!" Savio asked in a threateningly low voice, "Thought you were getting away, didn't you. Thought you could just run off and save yourselves and leave the rest of us in the lurch. That's all you really care about, isn't it – friend or foe, it doesn't matter, anyone can go, as long as it won't be you!" He tightened his squeeze and lifted the red lemur, bringing him close to his face. "Ah, I'm sick and tired of you questioning my authority time and again! – Listen, lemur, I will tell you this only once more, okay? _It doesn't work that way._ "

Clemson struggled in his grip, slowly but surely running out of breath. "Let go… please!" he choked out, panic rising in his ragged voice. Savio ignored him.

"If one of us runs away, he or she increases the risk for the others to be chosen as victims by Charlie because there are less of us in total then. As the leader of the Hoboken Zoo it is my duty to keep this risk to an absolute minimum for all my fellow occupants – this is why none of the residents are allowed to leave this zoo without my permission, _¿me expliqué?_ Did I make myself clear?"

"Y… yes…" Clemson's voice was nothing more than a whisper now.

When Savio finally released him, he fell to the ground, gasping and panting for breath, feeling as if he was about to suffocate. His vision blurred from the lack of oxygen, and waves of dizziness washed upon him as the blood was rushing back to his head.

"Long live Savio, the King of Hoboken!" he heard Hans' voice from afar, "He is protecting us!" Some other Hoboken residents had gathered around them in the meantime to view the spectacle, and more cheering voices joined in as the crowd was slowly dispersing again. Clemson clenched his paws into fists. _What a bunch of hypocrites!_ He struggled to get back on his feet – and was knocked down again by a penguin flipper slapping him hard.

He blinked in confusion and then saw Skipper's upright figure towering above him.

"What the hell were you thinking?!" – Now it was the New Yorkers who were surrounding him. – "So that's your game! I knew it all along!" Skipper was seething with rage. "You've never truly planned to stick to your word. All you wanted was Kowalski to make your robot able to rampage again and as soon as this was done, you thought you could just run away and not give a damn anymore about your part of the deal!"

"And you killed Clover!" Mort cried, "We'll never forgive you for this!"

"She's not dead." Maurice and Julien had carried the unconscious lemur girl up to them and now carefully laid her down next to Skipper. "But she could just as easily have died after that fall!"

They were encircling him; Clemson felt beset on every side. Yet he didn't look up to them but only at Mea's motionless body sprawled across the ground. He scrambled to the android's side and put his paws on his shattered chest. The electronic pulse was barely there.

He drew a shivering breath. He had to do anything – anything, to get Kowalski back on his side. Once more he was amazed at himself how easily he was able to come up with an excuse even in a situation like this. He forced himself to lift his head and meet Skipper's furious glare.

"Listen, you're getting this all completely wrong!" he said, voice firm, gaze steady. "We weren't trying to run away, not at all. We tried to explain that to Clover, too, but she wouldn't listen… she attacked us before we could tell her what we truly needed to do! – Kowalski, you will understand…" – The tall penguin raised both eyebrows. – "…You've been working with me before all along; you remember we failed to figure out why exactly we can't get the engine of our helicopter started, don't you? Well, I found it out now."

Kowalski blinked. "You did?"

"Yes. It's the ignition system. It needs a full new range of standard spark plugs." – Kowalski seemed surprised, yet not too doubtful. – "There's no way we can fix the old ones, and naturally we can't get a new set here inside the zoo. But I know a police department a couple of miles north of here, where they have helicopters like ours. All we wanted to do was to go there and get the spark plugs from one of them…" Slowly, Clemson stood up, facing the penguin leader, clutching his fingers around a tiny screw. "You see, there was no reason to mistrust us this time… or to have Mea shot down like this! We weren't up to anything you wouldn't agree with, were we? He didn't deserve this!"

"Yes, he did!" Mort pouted. "Because he's evil, just like you are."

Julien nodded his agreement. "Don't believe him. They would've never come back."

Maurice, too, had mistrust written all over his face. Skipper huddled with his brothers.

"Kowalski, is there really anything to that or is he just taking us for a fool?"

Kowalski hesitated. "To be honest… I'm not quite sure. I don't see how he got to the conclusion that this is really the root cause of the malfunction, and whether it is correct or not; but I can't deny it either. I can say for sure though that with a new set of spark plugs we'll definitely increase our chances to get the engine running after all."

Skipper gave him a nod. – "I'm still not sure if we can trust you, lemur," he declared aloud then, "But you might have told us the truth. Therefore you'll stay here, and one of us is going to get the spark plugs."

"I'll do it," a voice behind their backs muttered. They turned to Clover, who apparently was just recovering from her swoon. "I'm convinced I'm strong enough to break through that electric fence, and I'm a good runner, so I'll be back in no time. Just see to it that the rest of you stays safe around here."

Skipper frowned. "Are you sure? The electric shocks will hurt you, and you just had a fight. You don't look like you feel up to the mark right now."

But she just nodded sternly. "I can do it."

"Alright. Move out then; everyone else, resume your posts."

Clemson knelt down to gather the android in his arms and then looked up at Kowalski.

"So… you _will_ help me fix him again, right?"

The tall penguin exchanged a look with his leader, who frowned, but nodded eventually. Kowalski sighed. He looked tired, yet seemed uneasy and on edge.

"Alright, let's do it."

* * *

Back in the storeroom, Skipper watched his brothers gather around the helicopter, eager to work on it. They were about to attach the new rotor blades, hoping to already have restored the main rotor by the time Clover would come back with the spark plugs. As soon as he'd finished repairing Clemson's android, Kowalski had joined them again.

"Now everyone grab one end of the blade, and then we'll lift it all together," he instructed the others, "On my mark: one, two, three!"

Skipper knew that all he should do was to go over to them and help them.

He couldn't.

He stood alone in the back of the room between towers of piled up boxes filled with content unknown to him. He had explored every drawer and every shelf, trying to find a tool Kowalski had asked him for, but had been unsuccessful. Now he gazed into a dark corner of the room, immersed in deep thoughts. The memory of the duel with Hans wouldn't let him go, no matter how hard he tried to focus.

 _After all, you showed me you're not a skipper who can take care of his men._

The words echoed back to him like a knell, resounding down a long and silent corridor in his mind.

"Skipper?"

He flinched. The voice of his second-in-command tore him from his thoughts. Kowalski was standing behind him. "Are you going to help us, or…"

"What? Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. In a minute. I…" Suddenly his throat constricted and he could hardly breathe. He turned away from the taller penguin. "I just need some air."

– He waddled out of the storeroom as fast as he could. The glacial night air embraced him quickly, stealing any warmth left inside his bones; yet in his soul he felt much colder. He gazed into the darkness, which faded as his vision expanded. It was as though he could see through it into vast distances, live through it all over again.

 _As the ship passed the Scandinavian skerry coasts he leaned over the rail, looking back at the fjords that had lost all their charm, at the harbor of Copenhagen slowly fading out of sight, melting with the dark. The lights shivered offshore through the black tides of the North Sea… In these waves he'd lost every trace of them._

"What's wrong with you?" A familiar figure was there by his side, yanking him back into reality. Kowalski put one flipper to his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

 _The fire in the warehouse. Hans' face in the flames, the fiery colors of his beak blazing out even brighter, even more savage. He was the one to blame. He'd done it. He was responsible for all of this._

"Yeah, I'm alright." Skipper shook his head as if that would shake his thoughts away. "It was… a moment, Kowalski. The moment has passed. I'm fine now." – The taller penguin looked at him as if he wasn't fully convinced. – "It's just that… it's the first time we ran into something I'm not sure I can get us out of again. You know…" He swallowed hard. "…After Denmark."

Kowalski blinked his eyes. Most likely he'd expected anything but that.

He shook his head. "But that's so long ago. What is it about this old story now?!"

Skipper refused to answer at first. When he spoke again, his voice had a different tone altogether. "I failed, Kowalski. It was the one and only time in my life that I failed… truly, utterly failed, beyond any hope of redemption. – How can I be sure that this won't be the second time?!"

Kowalski crossed his flippers in front of his chest. "Skipper, there may be many things that happened in Denmark which I don't know about… but of one thing I _am_ certain: you did the best you could, and none of us could have done better than you."

His leader frowned darkly. "Well, obviously my best wasn't enough back then… So I fear it might not be enough now!"

Kowalski's gaze hardened, and he was silent for a while. "Skipper… You've been leading us until now," he answered in a lower voice, "During all our missions there may have been success… and failure. We've done so much together, as a team, as friends, as brothers. We had so many adventures, we saved many lives… but we can't always win. We can't always save everyone, not even you!"

"But the lemurs… They're civilians! And I would've almost lost them today. – If I can't take care of my men, I should at least be able to take care of the civilians!"

"You _did_ save them, didn't you?! And they could've been more careful, too! You told them not to go anywhere near that hospital, but of course Julien and Mort had to –."

"That's _not_ the point!" The leader clenched his flippers into fists. "That's just what civilians are like. They put themselves in danger. They're allowed to do that. But the elite isn't. The elite's duty is to save them from danger. – And I considered myself an elite skipper –!"

"And you _are_ an elite skipper!" Kowalski grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him a little. "Please, listen to me! I assure you that you are, just as I assure you that there's no need to burden yourself with a guilt that's not yours to bear! – Oh, I really wonder where this is coming from now all over again?!" – He let him go. – "Wait, I know. You've met that puffin again, right? Don't let him confuse you like this! Please, don't dwell on the past now. Even if the rest of us wasn't – you've always been the one who was strong, strong for all of us."

 _Herrings wielded like blades, slashing high, stabbing low, wielded with deadly precision. The Danish security. And then Hans ran, ran, ran, leaving him back alone…_

"– Please, Skipper, you can't give up now. We can make it away from here only with you as our leader, and we could make it all the way until now only because you were with us. We need you to be our guide. Our last hope for rescue. Like you've been so often!"

And then Kowalski leaned in and embraced him tightly. "I trust you, Skipper. I trust that if there's a way out of here, you're the one who's going to show it to us. – You know, no one can be flawless, as much as we all wish to be. But you, you're certainly the one of us who gets closest to being a perfect leader."

"Thank you, I…" Skipper found himself at a loss for words, but none were required. His brother would always understand.

And he was right! Skipper saw he couldn't allow himself to become consumed by the self-doubt he had buried so deep since then. Usually he could think about the Copenhagen Incident without any emotion. Surely it was just the situation; Hoboken, its inhabitants, the worries and fear about losing the lemurs, the horrors of this place – all of it combined was threatening to make him vulnerable. But the lemurs were safe now back in their habitat, and they had to carry on, so he couldn't allow himself to show weakness now. Realizing this, he hugged Kowalski back and drew a deep, shivering breath and released it again, wishing all the fears and memories that had bubbled up inside him gone right along.

But they were stuck in his mind, almost as deeply as his wartime experiences, playing and replaying all over again. He felt dull, as if someone had hollowed him out with a sharp knife. In a stupor he felt Kowalski pat his shoulder before the tall penguin turned to go back inside.

"Take a rest, okay? I'll ask Maurice if he can do your work for a while."

Skipper nodded. "Thank you."

Kowalski waddled back inside, and he waited until the sound of his steps had subsided.

Then he leaned back against the outer wall of the storeroom.

If only it were all over. If only he could pitch a Perfect Day, a fusion of body, mind, and instinct, perfect harmony… With one flawless move and in no time he'd help his team and the lemurs out of here. Of course it never comes when you wait for it, he thought angrily to himself. The night wind was cold and cut into his feathers, but he scarcely felt it.

– _Looking around at the evergreen fields, the hills, at his reflected image in one of the countless lakes by whose shore he was kneeling. Looking into the face of a penguin who had been a step away from meeting his destiny –_

 _Hunching himself along, looking around with wild eyes – climbing up the hills, the feeling of cold rock beneath his webbed feet and flippers that started to get chafed –_

 _Feeling as if these black waves were about to tower up and engulf him, drown him, the icy water swallowing him, and he was sinking deeper and deeper and deeper –_

And then, as suddenly as it had begun plaguing him, the vision stopped, leaving a void inside him far worse. Only yawning darkness surrounded him now – exhausted to the bone, he felt himself fall into it. Somewhere far above him, the ALCHIMUS HOSPITAL neon sign became blurred before his eyes, and he slumped down the wall as strangled sobs finally broke free from his chest.


	16. Chapter 15 - Chainsaw Duel

CHAPTER 15

 **CHAINSAW DUEL**

Once more Clemson marveled at Kowalski's expertise, his knowledge, the ease with which the penguin solved technical problems that would've challenged Clemson for days on end. Apparently the penguin had taught himself all sorts of little dodges to make multiplication and division easy to do in his head, so he could skip many computational steps that would've cost them a lot of time. So, barely an hour later, he'd cobbled Mea's fragments together again so neatly one barely saw how gravely he'd been damaged. It took three attempts to boot him up again, and at first he was speaking only in binary code to them, but in the end he was running fine, only his battery was extremely low.

Then Kowalski left to go to work again with his brothers, and the two red lemurs spent the night on the couch in their habitat, Mea plugged into the socket recharging, and Clemson's arms encircling him from behind as the android leaned back into him, their shadows merged into a single silhouette against the wall.

When Mea began moving again in his arms, Clemson knew he'd been able to wake up from the hibernation the critical battery level had forced him into.

"Are you okay?" he asked, keeping his voice low as he sat up straighter and watched him closely. He lit a cigarette for them to share.

Mea smoked and kept his silence. Clemson poked him a little.

The android sighed and then slightly shook his head. "Something's wrong," he whispered, his voice deep and husky. He took another mouthful of smoke. "I shouldn't have let you down like that, you know. I shouldn't have been taken down so easily when that motherfucker Hans started to go nuts on me. I just know that actually I could've made it! I should've been able to take those photon rays easily; heck, after all I'm built to resist any shot hitting a speed less than 1790 mph!"

His eyes flashed with barely concealed rage when he turned to look at his maker.

– "I'm telling you I'm not as powerful as I should be!"

"Don't be so harsh on yourself. Hans had a powerful weapon, and you must've been weakened from your fight with Clover before." – But the android shook his head sadly.

"No, I don't think that's the reason. It was like that before the fight…"

Clemson rubbed his jaw, pondering the situation. "Maybe your system has been compromised somehow. I could run an anti-malware program on you."

"Nah, I don't think my system is infected. I've been analyzing this for a while now, and clearly this is a hardware problem; I'm not physically capable of running some of the key features of my operating system. You know, as if all of the physical elements are where they belong and working fine, but somehow I can't fully access to them!"

Clemson reached a paw under the couch, jerking garbage there before he pulled up Mea's construction plans. "Look, I wish I had an idea what this was about, but I haven't. Kowalski just helped me repair you, so if there was anything wrong with your hardware, he would've noticed it, don't you think?"

"Unless… he was the one who _caused_ it."

"You mean when he fixed you, he could have… well, deliberately weakened you? Like, changing something in your BIOS in a way that it denies you access to all your hardware?"

"Yes, exactly!" Hesitating, Mea took Clemson's paw and put it against his chest. The faint vibrations of the android's engine tingled under Clemson's fingertips. – "It's in here, in my central processing unit. It's… faulty. Can you feel it?"

Clemson smiled at this. "I can't, but you're certainly right." He looked to the ground, biting his lip. Whatever it was, if the fault was in there, it would probably be hardest to fix.

"…But you're my maker. So you can repair me, can't you?" Mea's eyes flickered nervously upon his face when he didn't reply anything, so he tried his best to hide his uneasiness.

"I'll try," he answered evasively, "Let me check this out."

"Okay. Should I shut down?"

Although Clemson knew that this was highly recommended before servicing any machine, he shook his head. "No. I'd like to do this while you're running. I'll be able to make out any possible differences more easily then." He got up, took the wrench, and removed the iron sheet over the android's chest. A moment later he got a look at his resource monitor and watched Mea's physical RAM usage spike to 90 per cent when he touched the central processing unit. "– Shhh. Relax!"

He did a full system scan in Safe Mode and then made an image of Mea's hard disk drive.

"Okay, the image is finished now. I'm going to compare it with the one I made before your reactivation. – Nope, absolutely identical. There's really nothing that – oh, here we go."

One of the android's built-in features had performed a binary comparison of the two images, producing two enormous lists of zeros and ones; contrary to what Clemson had expected, some of them were marked out in red, showing that there was indeed a difference. The location of numbers told him where exactly it was located – right in the center of the CPU. Clemson carefully removed its last outer casing and felt Mea shiver as he did so.

A soft, glowing blue light was radiating up from the inside of the android's chest – the raw, powerful energy was pulsing there through his very core like a heartbeat, each impulse accompanied by a soft hum. It was the sound Clemson loved to hear when his cave was dark at night, the sound that lulled him to sleep when Mea lay next to him recharging.

But now he discovered a part that marred the beauty of his innermost unit, a part that wasn't in the construction plans at all: a tiny circuit chip measuring just about 0.5mm square. The electric impulses flowed right through it, protecting it, embedding it in the rest of the construction so well that there was no way Clemson could risk removing it.

"Tell me this isn't true," he mumbled but didn't dare to touch it.

"What is it?" Mea asked breathlessly, "That penguin has added something to my hardware that doesn't belong there, right? What is it – an explosive charge? A time bomb? Am I going to blow up any second?!"

"No, it's… some kind of resistor, as far as I can see. A core performance monitoring and modification tool. It's permanently underclocking your processor and therefore seriously reducing your overall performance. – You were right. There's no doubt that it was Kowalski who did this!" He put the casing back in place and wanted to screw it tight again, but Mea took him by the wrists, hindering him from doing so.

"What are you doing? Remove it!"

Clemson shook his head sadly. "I can't! I wish I could, but if I do, I might damage your heart… your CPU, I mean."

"Let's risk it."

"No."

"Do it!" The android's eyes were gleaming fiercely. "Don't make me run around any longer as the weakling I am now!"

" _No._ I won't risk losing you again!" Clemson contradicted, more harshly than he'd meant to sound, but he could feel the rage bursting forth inside himself, and he couldn't control it.

"– How _could_ he!" He hurled his wrench to the floor. "How could Kowalski lie to me like this! When he told me we had a deal, I thought he was honest. I thought he'd help me restore you the way you were, just like he said he would. And then he did that to you!"

"Calm down," Mea told him, but he couldn't; his heart was overflowing with a whirlwind of emotions, he pictured the tall penguin and his brothers laughing scornfully at him now, and an uncontrollable rage engulfed him.

"Hell, without your power you could've _died_ the last time Charlie had you! – Oh, I swear I will punish him. I will punish him for lying to me like this, for doing this to you! He didn't fulfill his part of the deal, so why should I?!"

Mea wasn't convinced. "How do you want to get away from here then? You just saw what happened when we tried to escape on our own; I'm just not strong enough to help you…"

"Oh, but you will be, the next time. I won't let them get away with this!" Clemson hissed, clenching his paws into fists.

"Look, I made them believe that the reason why we can't get that helicopter fixed is that it needs some new spark plugs. Of course I actually have no idea; that was just an excuse I made up so the penguins wouldn't turn against us because we tried to run away and leave them in the lurch. And because I needed Kowalski's help to fix you again, of course." – He took a look at the android's construction plans again to make sure his idea was realizable.

"But now Clover is away getting us some spark plugs; and once she's back I'll try to take them from her and build them into you instead. If they're made for a helicopter, meaning a machine a lot stronger than you, they'll easily serve you to bypass that resistor and enable you to go back to full power mode, even though it's still there!"

For the first time tonight Mea looked alive. "That's… actually a great idea! And believe me, once I'm strong again, I'll teach them a lesson they won't forget. And then no one's going to thwart our escape, not the dirty birdies, not even Savio and his group."

Clemson felt his anger subside, and a pleased smile crept over his face. "I really wish you will. They've messed enough with us! We should just kill them. Kill them all. Break their heads open and squish their brains! – Now that we don't need them anymore, I just want them to pay for that they've done…" He grabbed Mea's gun and withdrew the magazine to check if it was loaded. It was. "– They damaged you. They did harm to you, who is my ally. So I will do harm to one of their group." He looked up at the android, eyes sparkling maliciously. "And I bet you know who it is."

Mea blinked a few times in surprise. "Now hold up, are you serious?!"

"Yes. I'm going to kill Julien." He snapped the magazine back into place. "It's now or never: now that Clover is out of the way after all, this should be easy enough! And the dirty birdies are all at work…" He chuckled. "And then we'll just put his body into that hospital backyard and say, Charlie has done it."

Mea still seemed a little astonished, but then a bright smile broke across his face.

"Awesome! Let's go for it. – But let me come along," he added then, "Just in case you need backup."

"Alright, but leave the shot to me."

"Certainly."

They left the lemur habitat and snuck over to the puffin habitat where the lemurs were staying overnight. When they peeked over the fence, however, to see who was on the other side, they were surprised to find Julien and Mort alone in there; Maurice was just heading off to the storeroom along with Kowalski. After they'd thoroughly cleaned soot and ashes from their fur, the two younger lemurs were asleep now.

Clemson pointed the gun at Julien. He felt himself straighten with pride, but at the same time he was suddenly nervous, more nervous than he felt he could ever be, downright delirious, like a runner toeing the starting line at a race. This was his big moment. He would take down the lemur king after all and claim the crown for himself, like he'd been dreaming of doing for so very long now. He stayed low on one knee as he held the weapon ready, every muscle tensed, every nerve on edge, every fiber of his being concentrated on the sleeping lemur king, if only he didn't miss this shot –!

But there was something else.

On watching him sleep like this, a frantic need began tearing at his mind. _Julien…_

The lemur king had pushed the sheets away in his sleep and lay on the leaves in all his beauty, silver fur flowing across the pillow of the bed. He smiled a little in his sleep, and a childlike, innocent look came over his face, setting off sparks along Clemson's spine.

Soon his beautiful body would be cold and lifeless, the soft skin and smooth musculature turned into rotting flesh, the silver fur marred and torn to bloody bits by the deadly bullet.

Perhaps it was this realization that made his beauty all the more stunning to Clemson now. The curve of Julien's lips bewitched him. Lust for him bolted through him, arousing him to have the silver lemur. Have him now, one last time.

"Any time now," Mea whispered beside him.

Clemson barely heard him. A frenzy of desire built inside him like a storm forming on the horizon, coming closer, closer. He wanted to pull himself together, wanted to shoot, but his brain had locked down, refusing any distraction from the sensuous imagination.

Finally Mea took him by the shoulders, ripping him from his lustful fantasies. "Clem, are you going to shoot in this century or the next? Or should I do it for you maybe?!"

"No! No, no. I was just thinking... I want –." he stammered, his voice filled with arousal and demand now. "I thought before killing him I could…" He whispered into the android's ear what he was planning to do. Mea nodded eagerly.

"That's a super fantastic idea! Can I watch?"

Clemson rolled his eyes but couldn't hide his smile. "You're _such_ a pervert."

"Pleeease…"

"No."

Mea's expression turned serious again. "Okay, that's cool, too. Then I'll go back to the cave and start packing our things already because once Clover is back with the spark plugs, we might need to speed things up; we can't be sure what exactly they'll do as soon as they find Julien dead. If we're unlucky enough, they might turn against us even though we say it was Charlie."

He took the gun from Clemson and changed the power setting to _stun_. Then he fired a quick silent shot at Mort, who was sleeping nearby; the little mouse lemur stirred in his sleep, a whimper escaping his throat, but then lay back again motionless. "– He won't disturb you now; you can kill him later, too, if you want to." Mea holstered the gun and gave Clemson a knife instead. "Take care. If something doesn't go as planned, call me right away." – And then he was gone, leaving Clemson to his vicious intentions.

He walked over to Julien's bed and slowly, carefully sat down on the leaves beside him. The coconut scent of his fur surrounded him with warm promise and heady sensuality. His paw came up to Julien's face, lightly grazing his cheek with his fingertips. How he ached for him, how much he delighted in this long-awaited touch! He eased the lemur king on his back and began fondling him, his touch growing rougher as his paws moved over Julien's shoulders, chest, and belly. Julien made a soft sound in his sleep and his paws moved against Clemson's, but the red lemur pushed his arms out of the way again so both his paws could mold and squeeze the soft, firm flesh. Julien took a few deep breaths as he did so, and then his eyes opened – and stared up at Clemson, at his horrifyingly familiar face which he'd never thought he'd have to see again so close.

"You're more beautiful than I remember," Clemson whispered huskily. Julien wanted to scream, but Clemson's paw moved over his mouth so tightly he could barely breathe. "One sound," he told him, voice low and threatening, "And I'll kill you."

Julien replied nothing. He seemed paralyzed by fear, unable to move.

"I've been waiting for this moment ever since we we've been made roommates again," the red lemur murmured, a glimmer of cruel amusement crossing his features. He slowly removed his paw from Julien's mouth.

Julien floundered to a sitting position, his eyes filling with tears. "Please… don't…," he pleaded through sobs and shuddering breaths as Clemson stroked the knife lovingly against his throat. He muttered another protest when Clemson began touching him again, but as if in a drunken stupor Clemson didn't hear his words.

With a gruff groan, he raised himself over Julien and gazed down at him, wild-eyed and panting. Waves of heat raced through him, searing his very soul. The habitat around him grew red, hazy, as if a brilliant fire burned somewhere in the distance.

Julien stared up at him, his breath frozen in his chest. The red lemur's eyes were filled with lust, with something evil, as though a kind of madness had gripped him. Seeing this made Julien more determined to beat him off, but his strength was useless against Clemson's. "No! No, no!" Julien cried out as he began touching him again, roughly, carelessly; Clemson slapped his cheek hard, sending him reeling back onto the leaves.

Julien clutched his face, dazed with shock, a scream lodged in his throat.

"Thought you were getting away, huh?" Clemson asked him, his voice ragged and gruff, holding the knife to his throat again. He proceeded to get on top of him and moved his fingers through Julien's silver hair, looking down into his face. Julien held his eyes tightly closed. Clemson tightened his hold on him, pulling him closer. He lifted his chin, bringing their lips together, parting Julien's with his thumb. He speared his tongue inside and tasted him fully, his head spinning with the scent of him, his senses on fire with the lithe, perfectly shaped figure of him pressed up so close against him. Lust sang its way through his veins, and his paws were all over Julien's body now, over his chest, his hips, his thighs.

That brought a sharp gasp from the lemur king. His painful whimpers urged Clemson on.

"Don't," Julien whispered, "Please don't…"

This was all he could do. But Clemson's paws mercilessly moved up the inside of his thighs, and Julien's cry of surprise died in his throat as Clemson roughly parted his legs and immobilized him in that position.

"Oh, but you're so hot for me," the red lemur murmured, holding Julien down by his throat, "You want it so much." He ran the tip of the knife up the inside of Julien's left thigh, slowly, gently, just to feel the lemur king's body shudder and twitch under him, and then bowed his head to lick up the bloody trail. "How delightfully warm and wet you are… too bad, too bad you'll soon be all cold and stiff with death! Enjoy your last time, Julie."

"No, no, stop! Please!"

"Please make love to me, you're saying."

" _Don't_ ," Julien gasped.

"I know you really want it," Clemson mumbled, grabbing him easily as he tried to jerk away, and shoving his legs even wider apart. He adjusted his hold on Julien, looking at him with an expression the lemur king would never forget. It was a mixture of loathing and lust, of fury and thirst for retribution which was so terrifying Julien had to close his eyes.

"Thought you were getting away with what you did to me, huh. Well, you thought wrong!"

Julien lay very still as a tear ran down his face, burning on the bruise that was forming at the spot the red lemur had hit him. Clemson cupped his face and gently wiped it away, caressing his cheek. Julien was trying to sweep his paws away when he suddenly shoved his legs together and grabbed his hips from beneath his knees, pulling them sharply towards him before he tore into him, deeply, brutally. Julien cried out in pain, but already the red lemur was plunging deeply again, his desire increasing with every thrust.

"Does Maurice love you like this?" he whispered viciously, "Does he? Huh? I bet he can't. So how does that feel? –And that! And that!"

Julien began to squirm with pain, but Clemson pinned him down more firmly, preventing his back from arching so that he would feel his full impact. He thrust harder, smiling as he felt the frisson of pain ripple through his victim, heeding nothing but the satisfaction of his own desire. Julien lay beneath him, hurting, begging him to stop, but the more he cried the more force the red lemur would apply on him. Then he began to bleed, but Clemson kept going. "When I'm finished with you, you'll wish Charlie would've burned you alive right there in his crematory!"

Spurred on by Julien's cries, he thrust and thrust again, his moans of gratification overriding Julien's desperate sounds; they only increased his hunger, heightened and eased his journey to fulfillment. He didn't care about how much he was hurting Julien, who lay there crying and trembling from pain. It was all about him now. Waves of rapture washed over him, and he threw his head back with a mad laughter; he felt strong again, his strength replenished after such a long time of fear and despair in this torture prison of Hoboken. Being able to pass all the violence he'd experienced here on to Julien now left him feeling free and alive and better than he had in a long time. And how he relished that feeling of power, the wicked thrill at having the king under his absolute control!

When he was done with him, Julien lay in his blood, crying silently to himself. He wasn't moving, instead kept his face buried in the pillow; the only sign of life was his sobbing. Clemson's body reluctantly stilled, Julien's still shuddering and shuddering again beneath it. He looked back at the king in disapproval when Julien then started to move away from him.

 _No fucking way_ , Clemson thought, grabbing him, easing him over to his stomach and lifting his hips, positioning him on all fours before him. Julien began to struggle again, but he wasn't about to let him go now. Julien's face was half buried in the pillow, his eyes flashing stark terror. His tension merely elevated Clemson's arousal. He reached down and took his right arm and forced it back behind him, using it to hold him down as he thrust into him again. Uttering a strangled cry, the lemur king sank his fingernails into the pillow.

Watching him with satisfaction, Clemson finally released his body to throb and shiver violently. But he still wasn't done… The habitat around him spun in dark colors, and Clemson laughed and laughed, triumph washing over him in sweet waves. He lay back on the bed spreading his thighs, then grabbed Julien by the hair and yanked it hard, guiding his head down between his legs.

"Now, lovely Lemur Lord, you will do me a favor. You will –."

He swallowed his last words when suddenly somewhere nearby a sound broke through the hazy dark. – "What's that...?" Clemson jerked upright, gazing around the habitat as if searching the shadows for an unknown predator. Something inside him moved, and it wasn't because of Julien's presence. "What's that sound?!"

It grew louder. A roaring sound, but not one of an animal… He knew that sound. In a matter of seconds it made all the lust inside him run cold, went like a shiver from his whiskers to his toes, and his eyes widened with a fear that shook him to his foundation.

"No… No! It's… it can't be…" He pushed Julien aside, that useless little bundle of quivering fur, and stumbled away from his victim, suddenly trembling all over. It was loud now, coming up from just behind the habitat fence – his ears were forever wary for this very sound…

"Charlie _,_ " he choked out, his face a picture of horror. _"Charlie."_

And then a tall, dark shadow wielding a roaring chainsaw came leaping right over the fence and towards Clemson.

" _Mea!_ " Clemson cried the android's name from the depths of his heart. "Mea, Mea, come quickly –!" And then his knees buckled under him, and he fainted.

* * *

Rico leapt forward, both flippers clenching the most beloved of his weapons: his chainsaw. Of all the weapons of mass destruction he used to deal with, this was the one he considered absolutely unstoppable. Nothing could stand before its roaring, multi-toothed might; only grievous torture or even death awaited anyone who dared to challenge him now.

With a furious growl he lifted the saw up high over the already unconscious lemur, ready to make him feel the surging power of the spinning blade, to make him pay for all the pain he'd caused –

Just then a bullet ruffled Rico's Mohawk as it cracked by to plow into the wall next to him.

"Don't you _dare,_ bastard!" In the doorframe of the habitat stood the other lemur that looked exactly like Clemson – _Mea_ they called him, Rico remembered – with a gun pointed towards him.

"What have you done?!" He quickly ran to his maker lying motionlessly on the ground and knelt beside him and cupped his chin, raising his face to make sure he was alive. He didn't care about Julien, who was lying close to him in a puddle of his own blood. Clearly he had eyes only for Clemson.

"You beast!" he yelled at Rico, "What have you done to him?!" – Rico's answer was a threatening growl. – "Don't you even have a speech module, you idiot!"

Rico took a big step towards the android, revving his chainsaw three quick times at him.

"Oh, you think that'll scare me? Bad mistake! Because I've got one of those myself."

Mea showed Rico the chainsaw he'd stolen from their zookeeper.

The penguin gave an unimpressed snort.

"I guess I know what you mean." Mea narrowed his eyes as he smirked. "Let's see who's got the better one!"

Without hesitating, he got back to his feet and pulled the cord of his chainsaw. The motor revved, and the blade began spinning, all 5800 rpm. They stood apart from each other, circling each other, holding their saws ready, Rico's green one against Mea's red one.

"You know, I remember you," said the android, "You were the one who destroyed me before. What a pleasure to finally come face to face with my murderer and get the chance to make him pay for everything!"

And then they rushed at each other, swinging their chainsaws like swords.

Sparks flew as the spinning blades met in thrust and parry, slash and riposte, high and low. Relentlessly they fought, attacking and counterattacking each other. The air rang with the fierce music of their weapons roaring. Rico liked the bzzzz sound of Mea's saw; it was a bit higher than the one of his own. Spurred on by his enemy's pugnacious temperament, he grinned; if it hadn't been for the severity of the situation, he would've had one hell of a fun time battling him.

"Gotcha," he muttered when he scored his first hit.

The engine of his saw barely changed pitch as the spinning teeth easily chewed through the red fur and the metal layers beneath. Mea cried out and pressed a paw to his flank, losing his footing. The edge of Rico's blade had bitten his ribs, just above the waist. He went to one knee. Rico leapt forward, shouting in triumph, wielding his chainsaw high in the air. Mea raised his saw to parry, then recognized the feint and leapt back as Rico suddenly reversed the blow and swung upward, aiming to cleave him from beneath. He moved forward again, swinging his chainsaw low this time, parrying a slash aimed at the penguin's webbed feet. He only managed to strike the bottom of Rico's saw instead, the force of the blow nearly jarring his own weapon from his paw. Again they separated, circling each other.

"Well done, penguin. Now show me what _you're_ made of!"

This time Mea came on, cornering Rico and swiping the red saw at his left flipper. The blade bit and began eating away, slicing through flesh and bone, licking up the gouts of blood from the black feathers. A fine mist of blood, feathers, and tissue sprayed straight out from the saw. Rico's cry echoed against the walls of the habitat.

"Ha! Now you're going down." The android struck him again – feathers and flesh slicked down the wall and plopped bloodily to the floor. Mea chuckled at the sight. "Unlike me, you're an animal; you're made entirely of flesh. It is so very satisfyingly bloody."

Gasping, Rico ducked as Mea's blade parted the air above his head again. He sniffed and wiped the blood from his flipper. He wasn't scared. Not angry, either. But he saw in the android's red eyes that he was ready to kill him. Mercilessly. Bloodily.

So he knew he had better finish this now.

Mea rushed at him again, wielding and revving his chainsaw at him, his face lit with maniacal joy. "Now, which foot do you want to lose first, your left one or your right?"

Rico dodged his attack, pulling back, acting defensively. He waited until Mea was close enough and then swung at him in one upward arc. The sawblade dug into Mea's forehead; Rico sank the screaming teeth into him until his disadvantaged opponent stumbled and fell flat on his back. Metal smoked, oil sprayed, and the habitat smelled like a blacksmith workshop. Rico wrapped his webbed feet around Mea's torso and powered right through it.

"Kheeee!" the android shrieked as he got chewed up by the saw's teeth – it was the sound old TVs made when the channel showed white snow. Rico grinned. The blade dug deeper. The density of metal slowed the revolutions into choppy spurts; the high-pitched whine dropped into a growl. More oil sprayed. Rico kept his flippers clenched around the saw until Mea's screams became soft hums.

When he finally felt the weight of the android's body sag, he stopped the saw and pushed Mea's twitching frame aside, close to where his maker lay. Then he got up; wiping oil from his feathers, he looked down on both red lemurs as they lay next to each other on the floor, one motionless and pale, the other smoking and twitching uncontrollably, little, pulsing jolts of electric current running from his torn wires. He let the chainsaw roar one more time, intending to sever their heads, but then he thought he'd better ask Skipper for permission first. So he shrugged, turned his chainsaw off, and swallowed it again, and Mea's red one, too.

The heat of battle inside him subsided in an instant when he waddled over to Julien, who all the while had been hiding below the cushions of leaves, crying softly. The rogue penguin bit his beak, not knowing how to console him; while he could fight like there was no tomorrow, he'd always have trouble expressing himself... all the more towards someone who had gone through so much pain. When he looked between Julien and Clemson, there was something he felt inside this entire habitat, something very, very _bad._

Something ugly. Something that made him feel dirty and ashamed.

So he bowed down and patted Julien's back a little, like Skipper would do with him and his brothers when one of them was desperate. Julien flinched and looked up; his teary eyes flickered over Rico as he stared at his bleeding left flipper, at his white feathers stained with blood and oil, and in that moment he seemed so fragile against Rico that the rogue penguin was afraid he was going to scare the lemur king even more.

But he didn't.

When he bowed down to Julien, his eyes were back to being that beautiful deep blue; there was no raging fury in them anymore, only sympathy and sadness. And Julien looked deeply into them, and then at Clemson and Mea, who lay there defeated, and then he smiled through his tears and flung himself into the protective warmth of the penguin's embrace.


	17. Chapter 16 - Run, Clover, Run

CHAPTER 16

 **RUN, CLOVER, RUN**

 _This must be it._

Clover grabbed a pair of spark plugs and pulled them out of the repair kit. They looked exactly like those on the drawing Kowalski had given her so she'd know which of them would be the right ones.

So far everything had worked flawlessly: although she'd had to endure some bad electrical shocks, she'd made it out of the zoo without being hindered by any of the other inhabitants, like Skipper had warned her fiercely of. Then she'd taken the subway to Hoboken Uptown where, according to Clemson, the police department was located. It turned out he hadn't lied to them; neither in this point, nor about the fact that she'd find some spark plugs fitting their helicopter here. She'd arrived safely, and since it was deep in the night, there were no humans around this place to stop her from entering the huge spare parts depot next to the police department.

She took as many of the spark plugs as she could carry and then turned around, ready to leave the hall again, wishing to be reunited with her pack as soon as possible. She was already back up on the windowsill when all of a sudden the darkness around her was pierced by a bright flash of light. She blinked against it, her tail twitching, senses tingling.

The white light grew around her, encompassing her, swallowing her.

When she was finally able to open her eyes again, she wasn't where she'd been before…

She looked around herself in deep confusion.

 _Where in the world am I?_

She felt as though she'd been transferred to a different place. Warmth and fresh air surrounded her, not like in the depot, where the air was cold and carried a sharp, metallic scent. All around her were palm trees, ferns, bamboo, and huge baobabs.

 _Madagascar._

She was standing right in front of Frank the Sky God's temple. Water was softly purling down the stone stairs of the temple in shallow streams. She felt the wet, mossy ground beneath her paws. A group of little lemurs was playing by the water. They were exploring the temple, playing hide-and-seek between the rocks, and she heard them laugh and sing.

 _Is this a dream…?_

She felt a presence guarding these children, a very loving and gentle being, who was there for them all along. Her presence allowed them to continue playing in peace. She knew this presence… the temple guardian.

"Masikura…!" The chameleon appeared once she spoke her name; her scaly skin began forming a contrast to the stony background of the temple pillar she was sitting on.

 _"Clover, my child, how are you? I could feel your uneasiness in my dreams last night…"_

"Masikura, did you… did you bring me back home?!"

Clover was breathless, her voice so low it barely left her chest. For a moment the lemur girl was so happy to see the fortune-telling chameleon lady she felt the urge to embrace her; but then she quickly recollected herself, remembering the direness of the situation.

 _"I wish I could, but you are far away from here, my child,"_ Masikura told her, " _Only in my dreams I can speak to you; only in this vision of yours we can be reunited. Where are you, and what is happening to you and the others? Stevie and the rest of the pack are already beginning to wonder if you are going to return at all!"_

"My friends and I are caught in a horrible place," Clover explained, deep worry lacing her voice now, "We're surrounded by enemies, and mortal danger is always present. We're trying our best to flee, but unfortunately this appears to be very difficult. As the leader of the Ringtail Guard it is my duty to take the king home safely, or else I'll miss my one and only destiny! But right now I'm no longer sure I'll be able to live up to that duty…" Her voice had adopted an almost desperate tone when she added, "If there's any way you know – any way at all – please tell us how to go on from here safely. Please, Masikura, you have to help us!"

 _"There is little I can do from where I am now, I fear,"_ the chameleon lady replied sadly, _"However, I might be able to show you the near future so you will know in advance what your enemies are up to…"_

The scenery in front of Clover's eyes changed again.

 _Now she was back in the Hoboken Zoo, right there in the reptile house where she'd danced with Clemson. And there was the red lemur again, looking around to make sure no one else saw him, and Clover was right there beside him, but he couldn't see her because it was only her spirit that was present. Then he knocked on the glass panel of the zoo king's terrarium._

 _Savio descended from his favorite tree, facing Clemson and slowly, threateningly sliding and gliding towards him. "You dare come here after all, lemur?!"_

 _"I'm here to talk to you," Clemson said firmly, although the boa's mighty presence obviously made him shiver. "I wanted to apologize. It was foolish of me to try to escape from the zoo although you'd forbidden it. I see now how important it is to listen to you, since you're the King of Hoboken, and you know what's best for all of us."_

 _Savio wrapped himself round his tree again, slipping his forked tongue over his lips with a pleased expression on his face. This was what he liked best: being courted and flattered by every resident of Hoboken._

 _"Go on," he hissed, "What do you have to offer to allay my suspicions and regain my goodwill?"_

 _Clemson took a deep breath before he announced, "Three victims for Charlie."_

 _Savio raised his eyebrows with an expression of amused mockery, obviously not believing him._

 _"Don't push your luck."_

 _"I'm telling you that it's true. They're about to run from the zoo right now; if you come outside, you'll see it with your own eyes."_

 _Intrigued, the giant boa followed him, and so did Clover. And there she saw her pack; Julien and Mort were just about to help Maurice get atop one of the white walls. The older lemur carefully tried to squeeze himself through the barbed wire, just like Clover had done before, but couldn't avoid touching the electric fence. He yelled in pain as it electrocuted him, and the two younger lemurs stood clinging to one another in deep concern for him._

 _"See?" Clemson looked up at the giant boa. "I wasn't lying. And since you're the only one of us who knows how to inform Charlie about this, I thought I'd better tell you right away."_

 _Savio blinked a few times in surprise. "Clemson, you've just regained my protection," he explained, and then he undulated over to the Alchimus Hospital as fast as he could and reached his long, long tail up the exterior wall of the building and knocked the end of it against a certain lit window on the second floor. He and Clemson ducked beneath the shelter of the patio cover when the window above them opened up and Zookeeper Charlie himself looked out to see what was going on down there._

 _And then Clemson gave Savio a broad smile when minutes later, a group of human doctors came running out of the hospital to rush at Julien, Maurice, and Mort._

 _"It's a pleasure doing business with you."_

The vision ended, changing back again into the peaceful Madagascar scenery.

Clover gasped in shock. "No. No, it can't be…! Clemson is going to deal with _Savio_ in order to sacrifice them…?!" She could hear her voice scaling upward, and she clenched her fists to bring it under control. "– How can you let this happen!" she then yelled at Masikura, however, in an irrational burst of anger. She immediately regretted her harsh words when she saw that the chameleon's eyes had filled up with tears.

 _"I can only show you the future,"_ Masikura whispered, _"But I cannot change what is written in the stars. I can show you your enemies' intentions in advance, but unfortunately this does not mean I can give you a chance to foil their plans before they can be carried out… it only means I can give you a chance to think about other ways of proceeding, now that you already know what is going to happen."_

Clover was silent for a moment, thinking about this. "No, I can't believe this!" she exclaimed furiously, "You said you just showed me the near future. So exactly how much time will pass until this would happen?"

Masikura heaved a sigh of anguish. _"Twenty minutes from now. No more."_

"I will prevent this!" Clover announced with firm conviction, "I will simply see to it that I'm back in the zoo before this is happening, so I can warn King Julien and the others that they're going to be caught if they try to escape like this."

She looked at Masikura, watching for any sign of acknowledgement or approval from her. But all she saw in the fortune-teller's wrinkled face was a very slight, very sad smile.

 _"I wish you luck, so much luck, Clover. And I hope with all my heart that all of you will make it back here again safely."_

At her words the warm, colorful scenery of Madagascar turned still and gray, and the white light faded.

Clover opened her eyes. She was standing alone in the dark hall.

* * *

When Clemson recovered from his swoon, Julien and the assailer were gone.

Trying to locate the enemy, he got to his feet and peeked over the habitat fence. Obviously the New Yorkers were over at the lemur habitat, heavily discussing plans for an immediate escape. Clemson heard Julien cry, he heard Skipper implore them again and again to reconsider and not to do anything rash, and Maurice yelled back at him that they'd rather take any risk which would lead to their freedom instead of staying in one place with Clemson any minute longer.

This made him smile a bit at least; he might not have managed to kill Julien, but he'd sure as hell scared him to death – even badly enough to make the New Yorkers' group fall into a dispute so serious it split their solidarity!

Still he was convinced that there wasn't much time until he'd have to face the punishment they thought he deserved. So, as fast as he could, he locked down the puffin habitat from inside to feel at least a little safe when he tried to reactivate his android.

Gulping down his shock and dismay at how heavily damaged he was, he tried to reboot Mea again and again. – But he was nervous, oh, so nervous that this time he couldn't make it without Kowalski.

 _Operating system not found._

This simple message was all he got. Clemson slumped back on the ground, staring longingly at the bluescreen inside the android's chest before he tried again to enforce a system recovery.

 _Operating system not found._

Mea gave no sound. Only the cooling fans in his damaged flanks were still whirring. Clemson hesitated, then changed some basic system configurations to force him to boot into Safe Mode. For a moment a flash of light flickered up in the red eyes, and the well-known sound of him booting set in, and Clemson felt his heart leap with joy – for a moment he was already convinced that everything would be alright again when the boot process stalled, and all he got was another bluescreen:

 _A problem has been detected and -1 has been shut down to prevent damage._

Clemson heaved a shivering sigh. The habitat was so silent now that the humming of Mea's engine was lacking, way too silent. Suddenly a piercing loneliness overwhelmed him… the android was now just like any other inanimate object around him. Mea was, after all, a machine. Clemson quickly pushed the thought away and then unscrewed him completely and finally found the cause of the problem: Rico's last swipe with the saw had hit the hard disk drive, completely destroying it. Clemson removed the broken drive and then modified the boot order in the BIOS, forcing him to boot from the backup drive. He waited another breathless minute – and this time the android booted up flawlessly.

"Ugh." Mea blinked a few times, then rubbed his face with a moan before he looked at his maker. "Hey, Clemmy."

"Mea…!" Clemson fell into his arms, embracing him tightly – and then drew back and slapped his face. "Don't you scare me like that _ever again!_ "

"Ouch." Mea held his cheek, looking surprised. "What was that for?!"

"How can you keep telling me, 'operating system not found' when I know your whole electric soul is still in there and I just don't know how to make you work again…!"

Mea smiled a little. "I don't remember saying that to you… In fact, I hardly remember anything that happened before I went out. Oh, it was that penguin again…! – And there were you and Julien… Now, that didn't work out so well, huh."

"No, not really." Clemson sighed. "He's still alive."

"Oh." The android was silent for a while. "Did you have fun at least?"

"You bet."

Mea grinned back at him and looked as if he wanted to say something more, but then his voice faltered and he clutched his destroyed flank with his paws for a while, clenching his teeth. Clemson knew he'd programmed him not to be able to feel any pain, yet it sure as hell looked like he was now.

But when he asked him about it, Mea just raised his eyebrows and answered, "Pain? Oh, you mean this… thing humans and animals feel when they get damaged. No, I have no idea what it's like. – So, what do we do now?" he quickly added, "Do we try to kill Julien again? I mean, we've got to do something before they come and kill us…"

Clemson nodded. "Yes, we will try… but in a way less dangerous for the two of us."

He peered through a crack in the fence to watch the reptile house. "Someone else will do it for us this time." – Mea gave him a quizzical look. – "It looks like Julien and the other lemurs are trying to flee from the zoo now. And I know someone who won't like that at all. Remember who stopped us when we were trying to run away before?"

"Wait, you don't mean…"

"If you can't defeat your enemies, why not team up with them instead? Savio always keeps an eye out for a good deal."

* * *

The race was on.

The rules: she had to make the run back to the Hoboken Zoo in less than twenty minutes.

If she won, the prize would be the lives of her pack. If she lost…

But she wouldn't lose.

This was all Clover could think of as she darted forward over the dark, empty streets. She had no time to wait for the subway now; she was going to take a shortcut over the roofs. She ran along the avenue until she found a building with a fire escape ladder and used it to haul herself up. Without hesitation she leapt off the roof top and landed on the next building's roof, somersaulting to take pressure off her legs and ease her landing. Continuing to run and jump from roof to roof like this, she looked out from up there over the sleeping city.

Why on earth wouldn't they wait for her!

She had no idea what had suddenly made them decide to leave the zoo without her or the penguins; she just knew that if she didn't make it back in time, they would regret this decision for the rest of their lives… which may not be that long then.

Suddenly she stumbled over the grid of an air vent duct and fell hard; her legs buckled from under her, and she dropped down, almost slipping off the edge of the roof. Cursing and panting and moaning she forced herself back on her feet and continued. But it was her left knee she'd fallen on, the same spot she'd hit so badly when their helicopter had crashed – the wound had never caused her any trouble again since then, but just now it started to hurt again.

 _Never, never, never slow down –_

After another while of running at the top of her speed she felt that her body begged her to give it a break, but of course she ignored it.

She wished she was a heartbeat that never came to rest.

 _I'll complete the mission because I know you need me to. And this is what gives me the strength to make it in time. Wait for me. I'm coming. I'm almost there._

Her head began pounding, softly at first, and then growing to a crescendo. _Run, run,_ whispered the voice in her mind. _Run, run._ She scanned ahead, wondering how much longer it would take her to reach her goal if she managed to maintain her present speed.

 _Wait._

 _Wait! I'm going to make it._

 _I'm going to make it._

She wished she was a ruler who could just stop time.

Her dry, heated lips were parted as she drew deep and deliberate breaths between them, her chest and shoulders visibly rising and falling from the effort. Now she was down on the road again and skittered across a bridge.

 _Run, run, as fast as you can. And never look back. Never look back._

She wished she was an animal with unlimited breath.

There was a crowd of drunken humans coming her way and she rushed past them. When they took the time to glance behind, the alley had already swallowed her. Her breath was sawing in her ears, her feet thudding along with her heart. The pain in her left leg grew worse; if she didn't use her full concentration on breathing now, this pain would cause her to run out of breath, but she was convinced she had the strength to avoid this. They called her the best runner in the pack in Madagascar, and she would prove herself worthy of her reputation.

 _Just go, go, never stop and never think –_

Run down and yet needing to function, sweating and yet freezing, she forced herself on. Inside her, around her – there was nothing left, nothing left but running here again. She had to go, to fight, to rush, to run, to save them, save them, save them.

This was her one and only purpose.

 _No. No. No, no, no, no – wait for me!_ _Don't fall into that trap –!_

She saw no end of the darkness. And she couldn't think of anything but Masikura's vision; it violently pulsed through her mind, echoed through her again and again. She wouldn't let Clemson betray them. She wouldn't let them become victims of the humans. Never. Never!

 _Never never never never never never –_

She tried hard to get into that zone where she outran her mind and was nothing but a body, all sensation, no thought. That zone where all the noise in her head went away and she just felt the heat on her skin, the sweat on her fur, and the stretch and flex of her muscles. But the pain kept her from doing so. _What can I do…?_

Over and over, she mentally urged herself to keep going, even though every muscle in her body was shaking, even though she didn't know how much longer she could hold on.

 _Come on come on it's not too late_ _not yet –_

She didn't believe in promise. She didn't believe in chance. The only ones she believed in were the Sky Spirits, and now she prayed to them, prayed as if this was her final prayer.

 _Help me, Frank. Please. Just this once. Just give me the strength to keep on running, okay?_

 _Keep on running. Running. Running._


	18. Chapter 17 - Breaking Point

CHAPTER 17

 **BREAKING POINT**

Through a haze of agony and shame Julien felt Rico carry him and Mort over to the lemur habitat. He couldn't have walked there on his own; his whole body was numb, exhausted, aching. Rico gently put him down, mumbling that he would get Maurice, or at least that was what they believed he was trying to say. Julien drew his arms around himself, fighting back the tears, trying not to think about what had just happened, but the images were still way too fresh in his mind; they replayed over and over behind his eyes.

Mort was up again; he was there hugging his king's feet and telling him in a trembling voice, "You'll be alright, King Julien; Maurice will come, and then everything will be alright, don't worry!"

Julien nodded, unable to speak, fighting off the feeling of despair that threatened to overwhelm him.

And then Rico returned with Maurice, and the older lemur came running towards them, the blood visibly drained from his face. "Julien! Mort! Oh, for the love of all the Sky Gods…!"

He dropped to his knees beside them, and Julien moved into his embrace; a part of him wished Maurice would go and leave him some more time to recover, but at the same time, more than anything else, he wanted him to stay close.

"Julien…" Maurice's breath ruffled his hair. Julien had his eyes scrunched tightly shut, yet tears began escaping them. Now that there was someone to shelter him, he could let go; and the pain came over him like a black wave, swamping any coherent thought, leaving him to freefall into a dark chasm of anguish and fear. All he could think about was Clemson and how he had touched him and hurt him, his own body that of a stiff doll under the red paws, meant to pleasure the sickest of lemurs. The old wounds opened up again, and he felt the pain of the past all over again, how Clemson had changed him from a happy lemur to a silent, bitter being no longer bearing any joy in his heart. The mere memory sent shooting streaks of terror careening through him, jettisoning every last remnant of his composure.

He began to weep without restraint, his whole body convulsed by the sobs that tore through him, so hard he ached with the force of them. The pain grew stronger until a heavy haze began clouding Julien's consciousness, muting the sound of Clemson's moans and his own cries in his memories and making the darkness creep up closer upon him. He couldn't tell if he was breathing just any second longer. The ground under him seemed to fall away.

When he came around, he lay curled in Maurice's lap, his fur tangled, and his face sweat-dampened and streaked with tears. The older lemur was caressing him lovingly over and over, and there were tears of compassion in his own eyes, too, as he smoothed wet strands of fur from Julien's cheeks. Julien didn't know how long he'd wept, but he was spent of strength now, and a cold stillness had settled over him.

When he saw that he was awake, Maurice settled back, pulling Julien against his chest. Julien snuggled closer, but the coldness was still seeping deep into his bones. He wanted to stay that way forever, in Maurice's arms, his soft, warm paws holding him so tight, so safe. He knew when he moved, it would all come back upon him and start to hurt again.

"What is it?" Mort asked nervously, biting his tail so hard it had started to bleed, "What has happened to him?" – But they wouldn't talk to him about it.

Eventually Julien lifted his head and gazed up into Maurice's eyes, looking paler than his advisor had ever seen him before. "Momo, can't we just… _go?_ " he whispered, his lips quivering so much he could hardly speak. "Leave this place? Just somehow get away… from Clemson?"

Another sob broke from him, and Maurice pulled him close again. The older lemur sat lost in thought for a while before a cold, hard expression settled on his face.

"Yes." Gently, he took hold of Julien's shoulders and looked into his eyes with an expression of conviction on his face that seemed unbreakable. "Pack your things, you two. We're getting out of here. Right now."

Mort nodded eagerly, his lips pressed together, and immediately jumped up to gather the few things they possessed in here.

"But the helicopter…"

"We'll take the other way, the way Clover took. And then we're going to meet up with her outside somewhere along her way back here." He put a paw on the younger lemur's cheek and wiped away a tear with his thumb. "Julien, I promise you we'll make it home somehow, but for now things can't remain this way. I'm not letting you stay close to that mad lemur one more day!"

Julien smiled faintly; first there was doubt in his eyes, but then he nodded, too.

"What about the penguins?"

"They will understand. They have to."

"But how are we going to get over that electric fence? It's going to hurt us…!"

Maurice thought about this for a moment. "The two of you are going to stay down, and only I will climb over it and then open the gate for you from the other side," he decided then.

Julien grasped his paw and squeezed it. "But Momo, I don't want you to get hurt…!"

"I can do it. Unlike you, I'm in good condition; and Clover made it, too." Maurice saw in Julien's eyes that he wanted to contradict him, so he gently but decisively put a finger to his lips to silence him. "Don't even think about it. There is _no way_ I'll let you get hurt even more than you already are!"

Julien cast down his eyes but then nodded reluctantly; there was nothing he hated as much as the thought of Maurice getting hurt, but in the state he was right now he couldn't imagine anything worse than sharing a cave with Clemson just any longer.

Rico was still standing there in front of the entrance of the lemur habitat to make absolutely sure that they were safe now; he'd listened to them with growing worry and now began grumbling something at them, obviously trying to change their minds. When they were about to leave he even stepped in their way, his brow furrowed with worry.

"No, Rico. There's simply no way we can stay in this place any longer after this," Maurice tried to explain, but the rogue penguin wouldn't move until Maurice calmly but firmly pushed him aside. However, they had barely stepped out of the habitat when someone else got in their way… they could tell who it was by the shape of his silhouette in the moonlight.

"Where do you think you're going?" Skipper asked.

"We're leaving this place," Maurice explained, "Permanently."

"What?!"

"We'll escape from here the same way Clover did before, and she's going to join us outside then."

Skipper blinked in surprise. "Oh no, you're not!" he said then, slowly. "It's too dangerous. You saw how the Hobokeners reacted when Clemson and the robot tried to flee, didn't you? They were ready to shoot them! And then the humans can easily see you, too; Clover had one hell of a run of good luck she wasn't caught by either of them when she did that, and if she weren't so strong and fast, I wouldn't have let her risk it at all."

Julien began to shiver at his words. "But… we can't stay here! We can't stay where _he_ is –!"

Maurice took a step closer to Skipper. "Listen, do you know what happened?!" he asked sharply.

"Yes. Rico has told me about it." His gaze briefly flickered over Julien, and for a moment he looked unsure of what to say; an expression of deep concern was clouding his face.

"Then I'm sure you can understand that after that we just can't stay around here any longer. You needn't take us to Madagascar; once we're out of the zoo, we'll find a way to get there somehow. But the most important thing is that we'll just _get away at all_."

"From _him_ ," Julien whispered.

But Skipper shook his head. "Listen, I… I'm sorry. Hell, I really am. I… know that this is going to be hard, but please try not to do anything inconsiderate. I know that this is a really bad time for you, but you mustn't overreact now. We've got to find a way together! You've seen how dangerous it is if one of us is exposed to the enemy; I'm telling you, the only safe way out of here is to work together more closely than ever, to work as a _team._ "

Julien lowered his head onto Maurice's shoulder and began sobbing again. "But I don't want to stay anywhere near him anymore…! I… I can't! I just can't!" When he lifted his tear-stained face again, Maurice felt his heart tighten in his chest.

"Well, if we're a team, then you, too, could've watched out better for his safety!" he shot at Skipper more harshly than he'd wanted to, "Teaming up with Clemson was your idea! Instead of doing that we should've put him out of commission the moment we arrived here, just like Clover wanted to! Look at the price Julien has had to pay, at what he had to endure – and all because we've always done things your way and haven't even thought about _any_ different possibility of escape than this one!" He could tell by the look on the penguin leader's face that this accusation hurt him deeply.

"You're right," Skipper murmured after a moment of stunned silence. His voice was shaken, and his eyes were begging Maurice and the other lemurs to forgive him.

"I take full responsibility for this. I am your leader and therefore to blame for what happens to my men… Hell, I'm so terribly sorry. I got so distracted by that devilish puffin earlier; I should've been able to ignore him! You wouldn't have had to leave Julien unprotected if Kowalski hadn't asked you to replace me at work… It was my fault this could happen!" – Rico wanted to object, but Skipper silenced him with a gesture of his flipper.

"It damn well was your fault," Maurice replied through gritted teeth.

Still looking miserable, Skipper drew a breath; if not being able to make things right, at least he wanted to try to make amends for what he believed was his failure. "But that's precisely why it's all the more important to make sure he's safe now! And he isn't going to be, if you think that you can just run away while he's in such a bad state of health! – Please, I must insist you listen to me. I can't let you run out to your doom like this!"

However, his words didn't make Julien feel any safer; if anything they seemed to increase his despair. "Please don't force me to stay anywhere near him…!" the lemur king pleaded, his voice breaking over the words.

"This is enough," said Maurice, "We're leaving. End of discussion."

But the penguins made no move to let them go any further. "You're not going anywhere."

Now Maurice's voice rose slightly. "Who's going to stop us?"

Skipper's face was set in stone. "Don't make me do this, Maurice."

– Behind his back Rico was silently clenching his flippers into fists; Maurice couldn't believe he would really be willing to go so far as to use violence in order to stop them. Meeting Skipper's gaze, he struggled to quell his anger. "You wouldn't do that, would you."

"Oh, you bet I would. I've done it before, and I can do it again. I'd rather take out my own men before seeing them gunned down by my worst enemies or allowing them to get butchered by a mad zookeeper!" Skipper hesitated before he in turn added in a slightly accusing tone, "You know, this is an extreme situation we're dealing with here. You guys don't make things particularly easy for us! We told you not to talk to anyone here and not to go near that hospital, and yet we ended up risking our necks to save your two friends –."

Maurice gave a disgruntled snort. "Ah? So now it's our fault or what?!"

The leader just shook his head, holding up his flippers in defense. "As soon as you guys have calmed down a little, you're going to thank me yet!"

Julien had his face buried in his paws and Mort, his lower lip quivering, covered his ears when Maurice and Skipper now began arguing with each other really loudly.

"'Calm down a little'?! You don't have the slightest idea of what you're talking about, of what Julien has actually been through with that villain!" Maurice yelled at the leader, "You failed to understand it last time, and you fail to understand it now! So just stop pretending you would!"

"I've been at war for eight years, Mister," Skipper shot back, his cheeks flushing with fury, "I've watched my comrades die; I've seen how they were shot through the head, their brains being scattered all about the rest of us who were squeezed in the trenches right next to them! You can bet I know about serious bodily injury and all the emotional consequences associated with it!"

"Well, _this_ is your problem, Mr. Veteran! All those years at war have made you numb. You don't have an inch, a moment of compassion for the one who suffered the most in this battle so far! – You might be a perfect general now but you're lacking emotion which you had to kill inside you in order to survive all the grief you've experienced. And now you're left without a heart! If there was just a stroke of empathy left running through your veins, you would understand now!"

"That's not true! I –." Skipper was about to tell him that his reaction was by no means in proportion to the cause when Julien's cry interrupted their fierce argument.

"Look, there he is…!" At the other end of the place near the eastern wall of the zoo they saw a lemur's silhouette flit through the darkness, heading towards them. When it came past a lantern, for one tiny moment they saw a brief flash of red fur in the lamplight.

"– He's coming back! No… no! _No!_ " Julien's voice cracked high and thin, and then he ran off in the opposite direction, faster than any of them believed he ever could in his terrible condition.

 _"Julien!"_ Maurice roughly shoved Skipper aside and hurried after him.

"No! Listen to me! Don't do it," he heard Skipper yell after him, "For the sake of all that's good and decent, _don't!_ "

But Maurice wouldn't listen anymore. He caught up with Julien and grabbed him by the wrist, stopping him. "Don't run off like that," he panted, "We need to stay together now." For once it was he who gave the orders, but right now his king seemed to be just glad about it.

Julien clung to his paw, shaking all over. "Sorry."

"You, too, Mort. Come here, closely." – The little mouse lemur took the advisor's other paw and held it tight. – "That's good. Now, let's move."

With Maurice in their middle and holding each other's paws as tightly as they could they ran towards the main gate with all their speed.

Skipper watched them leave, a look of deep regret shadowing his face. _No way…!_

"You're going to pay for this, Clemson!" he furiously called out to the red lemur, who was still moving hastily towards them through the dark.

"Skipper! It's me," a soft voice called back, and then a familiar face materialized from the shadows, haloed in tousled red fur.

"Clover…!" The leader blinked in surprise as the lemur girl skidded to a halt in front of him. She was pale with exhaustion and gasping for breath, shattered from the run.

"It's… it's Clemson… He has… He's –. And Savio…" The words she was choking out were barely understandable. Now that she'd finally come to a halt after her violent running, she started to shake all over. Her injured leg was burning and cramping.

"Easy, girl." Skipper patted her back. "You're back already! We wouldn't have expected you so soon. You must've run like hell!"

"Are… Are King Julien and the others with you?"

"Nuh-uh." Rico shook his head sadly.

Skipper drew a deep sigh of resignation. "No, they've just left. We couldn't stop them. They wanted to try to flee on their own at all costs. And I couldn't stop them!" Both surprised and worried, he watched the last shade of color drain from her face.

"Too late," she whispered in a strangled voice, "I'm too late!" Now her breath was catching in little half sobs; it was obvious that she had to concentrate to stay upright. "No one can change the future…!" Finally her knees buckled, and she had to sit down.

Skipper put a consoling flipper to her shoulder. "What do you mean…?"

"Clemson…," she stammered, her ragged, cut off breath turning into more sobs, "He's dealing with Savio behind our backs! Right now!"

"What?!"

"He tells him that they're trying to flee, so Savio will let Charlie know about it, and then –."

Just then, the double doors of the Alchimus Hospital burst open.

A flash of pale white light shot right out into the dark as a group of human doctors came running outside. In an instant they were gathering around the three lemurs, and the next thing they knew they were running for their lives – Julien and Mort managed to flee in the sheltering shade of a tree nearby. Maurice, however, had already climbed the wall and was weakened from the electric shocks he'd endured when he'd tried to get through the fence. Now, back on the ground, he wanted to follow the two younger lemurs – he stumbled rather than ran, but then his legs gave way beneath him and he fell and desperately, futilely kept on crawling to escape the humans' huge greedy hands reaching for him. There were doctors gathering all around him, two, three, four of them, and they grabbed him and began dragging him away. Maurice fought them with fangs and claws and every ounce of strength left inside him, but it was nothing against theirs; and when one of the humans knocked his fist forcefully against his temple, he went limp in their grasps.

"Maurice!" Julien cried, hurrying out of the shade again and reaching his paws out for him, but Skipper and Clover caught hold of him and began violently dragging him back and out of the danger zone. He kicked and squirmed, trying to get out of their grip.

"Ringtail, it doesn't help anyone if the rest of us are caught, too!" Skipper muttered, clutching his left arm with both flippers. "There's too much of them! We've got to think of something else!"

Rico was pulling little Mort along, who gave wild cries of protest.

"No! Maurice! _No!_ " Julien tried hard to break free, but they held him with such force he had no choice but to submit. "MAURICE!" With a last desperate cry he broke down, weeping so bitterly their hearts clenched in sympathy for him.

The giant wooden doors of the hospital fell closed with a thundering boom – the humans were gone, and so was Maurice.

"Why the _hell_ wouldn't you guys wait for me?" Clover burst out then, "Why did you just want to run away from here without me?! This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't acted so rashly!" – But Julien wept and gave her no answer.

Skipper took her by the shoulder and murmured into her ear what had happened, not loud enough for the rest of them to hear.

Clover's face went white, then red, and then she screamed, "That's not true! Tell me that's not true! He did it to him again, that psychotic piece of –."

Her litany of swearwords was drowned in the louder noise of excited calls – right then Kowalski and Private came running from the storeroom to ask what was going on. They were all talking to each other now at the same time very excitedly and very loudly.

"Good golly, what's happening here?!" Kowalski shook his head in confusion.

"Clover, you're here again already!" Private exclaimed, surprised to see the lemur girl.

But Clover barely heard him. "– How does he _dare_ act like that with my king! That filthy, disgusting little prick! So vulgar and cheap. Sick!" she hissed to herself, her lips curled in disgust, "I'll kill him. Even if it's the last thing I do – I swear to Frank, I'LL KILL HIM!"

Skipper closed his eyes for a second, but Julien's sobs tore through the darkness behind his lids. While he couldn't have been calmer on the outside, inside he was trembling, shaking so very badly at the thought that he hadn't been able to prevent this. No matter how hard he tried to hold it all together, everything seemed to fall apart in the end, to slip from his clenched flippers until he was left with at least one man down, dead or soon to be.

Taking a deep breath, he finally gathered the strength to raise his flippers in order to silence them. "Clover, gentlemen, please… Will you please listen to me!"

They fell silent. The penguins and the remaining lemurs just stood looking at one another in angry despair, neither of them able to believe that Clemson had managed to split their group like this.

"What are we going to do?" Private asked.

"First let's get back to the puffin habitat and gather all the weapons we have. And then we go into that hospital, all together, and save Maurice – and I promise you that this will be the very last time any of us will ever have to set foot into there!" Skipper turned and stood looking up at the sinister building, his flippers clenched, his face contorted in a dark, bitter scowl.

"Because this time we're going to take this thing down once and for all!"

* * *

 **A/N:** _I was asked to assist in a different fandom for a little longer than a month, so unfortunately I have to take a little break at this point. I will be back here the second or third week of April to bring down the finale of this story. I'm deeply sorry to keep you waiting and want to thank you with all my heart for the support you've already given me. Hope to see you guys back in April!_


	19. Chapter 18 - All About Us

**A/N:** _Thank you again for coming back to read and for waiting such a long time. Your support means the world to me!_

* * *

CHAPTER 18

 **ALL ABOUT US**

From behind the fence of the puffin habitat Clemson and Mea watched the entire scene with great excitement. When they saw the New Yorkers heading straight for the Alchimus Hospital, they slapped each other a high five.

"It worked! Holy hell, this worked like a charm! They all went into that hellhole, all of them so concerned about their dear friend that they would completely forget about us!"

Mea skated out on the visitor paths that were now empty again, and Clemson ran after him. "Yeah, but those dumb humans only got Maurice…"

"Oh, never mind; we needn't give a damn about that anymore. Not now that we have the final missing piece" – the android picked up the spark plugs Clover had dropped when she'd run to stop Julien – "to win our way into freedom! – Here." He tossed them to Clemson. "Now you can build them into me and give me back my old power!"

Clemson took them, weighed them in his paws, and then shook his head.

"No, we'll do something different. We'll use them to get our motorbike running again! I'm sure as hell not going to be able to fly that helicopter on my own, even if these things could make it work again, which we don't even know for sure; but for our damaged bike I believe they'll do the trick. So let's fix it and get the hell out of here!"

Mea looked confused. "What…? But that wasn't the plan! I thought –."

"Come on, let's not waste any time! While I repair the motorbike, you climb out over the wall and open the gate for us – and pray to the Sky Spirits that the humans and the other idiots are busy enough now so no one will see you."

"But… But I thought we'd use those spark plugs to make me strong again!"

"We will, we will," Clemson promised, "I will build them right into you… after we've escaped from here and found some place safe where _nobody_ will threaten us in any way anymore."

Then he turned on his heels and ran back inside the now empty lemur habitat before the android could say more. He eased the damaged motorbike out of the corner, dusted it off, and then removed the bodywork and chassis parts that obstructed the access to the spark plugs. Of course the spark plug spanner didn't have the correct width and length for the helicopter spark plugs, but with the right adapters it was a matter of minutes until Clemson managed to tighten the new plugs up with his torque wrench. When the bodywork was back in place, he let the engine rev up – the loud sound of it echoing from the cave walls, that sound he hadn't heard for so long, filled him with tingling euphoria.

He looked around in the cave not to leave anything behind he might need yet. His gaze fell to a stack of paper on the shelf… the floor plans of the Alchimus Hospital! In their worried haste the New Yorkers must've forgotten them. Maybe one of them would run back in here any minute to look for them! There was no way he'd let that happen. He rolled them together and took them along and his toolbox as well and then said goodbye to his habitat.

He gently pushed the motorbike outside and over the visitor paths.

There was no one in his way.

When he reached the zoo entrance, the golden gate was open; Mea was waiting for him outside. The android clambered on behind him, putting his paws firmly around his maker's waist, and then Clemson gunned the engine a few times, and off they went into freedom.

They had made it.

 _They had made it out of the Hoboken Zoo!_

Clemson could hardly believe it; more waves of euphoria washed over him as he slowly drove over the zoo parking lot, and then hit high gear as the road opened to them between some scrubby trees.

"Goodbye forever, Hoboken!" he cheerfully called into the wind, "Hopefully Charlie's going to have some fun with you guys while we're already over the hills and far away!"

They were the only ones on the road; there was no oncoming traffic.

Prone to drive at high speeds as he'd always been, Clemson set them flying along at a pace that sent spirals of dust drifting up behind them. As they rode up a hill, he could hear the gravel crunching under the tires. The energizing feeling of freewheeling downhill shortly afterwards with the wind blowing over his face and his fur streaming in the breeze was so exhilarating, so liberating; leaving the prison walls of Hoboken behind and riding out on the open road like this gave him a long-awaited sensation of independence. Yet he felt there was something diminishing the beauty of the moment…

He turned around to his only fellow passenger and found the android's features shadowed with barely concealed anger. "Something wrong with you?"

Mea leaned back in his seat with a frustrated sigh. "Here we go, running away again, while we could actually rule an entire zoo!"

Clemson was surprised.

"But we're not running away. We're embracing the freedom we've won."

"Ha! You can hardly call it _winning_ after we haven't even fought for this freedom! – You know, all the time you said you were going to make me strong again. And now that you've got the chance to do it after all, you refuse!"

"Mea, I told you –."

"– And I know why, Mister. Because you don't trust me! You said you'd forgiven me, but really, you haven't!"

Clemson sighed. "Now _please_ don't start with this again."

"Well, I wouldn't, if this issue was settled," the android growled, "But apparently it isn't!"

"Listen, I said I would never leave your side, and I won't," his maker tried to reassure him, "What happened before… it was Hans' fault. We should just be glad we're away from him and the others now once and for all. But you see, this was _not_ about us. It has nothing to do with our trust in each other!"

"Yes, it does! This is all about us! Don't you see that we wouldn't _need_ to run for safety if you had given me the power? You built me to fight for you! So why won't you let me fight?!"

"Because I'm afraid we'll lose. If we had stayed and fought, you may have been stronger than any animal in the zoo indeed, but you know Savio… he's unpredictable. Perhaps he would've come up with something we couldn't have possibly imagined. Why take the risk? We've had enough trouble and threats against us!"

But Mea just shook his head furiously. "You're always going to run away, aren't you! Rule a zoo, become king after all – that was what you've wanted all along, wasn't it?! With my help you could've overthrown Savio so easily and take all the glory that was his! Even now that the chances are so high, the prize so magnificent, you refuse to accept the challenge. – Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised; after all, you've never been one who's ready to go down fighting. You'd rather run away than die through giving your best effort; really, you're just one more of those countless beings who renounce themselves because of their fears. You know what? You're a damn coward, that's what you are!"

"Stop that shit now, okay?" Clemson cut him short, "I don't want to hear about it anymore."

"– You're so sly and quick-witted; you know how to trick others in the smartest of ways, but the real reason you do all this is because you're afraid to stand up to them," Mea went on, ignoring him, "You lie because you know how much it can hurt to face the truth, and you're not strong enough to take it. You think your superior intelligence can make up for this kind of weakness, but the time will come when those pretty little lies won't be enough to cover up what a weakling you are!"

Clemson turned around to him and shot him a menacing glare.

"That's as far as you go, Mister!"

"Hey, keep your eyes on the road!"

"Now _stop lecturing me_ , for crying out loud! I –."

He had no time to finish. Whooshing at breakneck speed, the motorbike hit the guardrail – a loud _thunk_ , followed by the metallic sound of something breaking just underneath the seat, echoed before Clemson lost control. The bike violently swerved to the left, then flipped over the median and rolled on itself. The clang of bent metal and the sharp sound of breaking glass resounded as the bike crashed off the road and tumbled one last time before ending its run as the impact threw it to one side.

Clemson heaved himself painfully to his feet. Fortunately he hadn't landed on anything vital; his right leg was hurting, but the sight of the accident made him forget about the pain in an instant. His face turned bleach white with shock when he saw Mea lying in the grass. He ran to the android's side, stumbling on loose rocks. From the damage of his body Clemson could tell his neck had snapped when he had landed on a big rock, an accident which would've caused every living lemur to die almost immediately. Oil was spurting from several damaged spots all over his body; the ground beneath him was dark where it had mixed with the slick mud.

"Oh my gosh…" The shock of seeing him so torn and battered nauseated Clemson, made his head spin. "Mea! Talk to me!" – The android moved a bit but didn't make a sound. Clemson clutched his paw fiercely. "Please stay with me," he very nearly whimpered.

All around them was nothing but silence, total silence and darkness; they were in the middle of nowhere. And they were so lost next to that big empty road, and Mea lay so limp and lifeless beside him… For a moment Clemson had that feeling again, the terrifying feeling of being abandoned, so utterly _alone_ with nothing but piles of damaged machines around him.

But then the android's red eyes flickered back to life. "Clem…" Mea tried to raise himself but then fell back to his side, his eyes half closing again. He pulled his maker's paws into his and curled them away from him. "Stay away," he whispered hoarsely, "I'm damaged. I don't want to give you an electric shock."

"Oh Mea, Mea…!" Ignoring the warning, Clemson took the android's oily face between his paws. Until he noticed his tears mingling with the black soot on Mea's face, he hadn't realized he was crying. He wiped his face with his paws and tried to stop, but Mea was alive, _alive_ , and the tears kept flowing.

"This is my fault," he sobbed, "I should've known better than to think such a hasty escape would do well. All I wanted was freedom and safety for both of us… and now you're about done for!"

"Nonsense. I'll be alright!" Mea almost sounded annoyed, as if he didn't want Clemson to consider him weak by any means. He coughed, his body racked by current surges, and flecks of oil gathered at the corners of his mouth. "You know I can't feel any pain –."

"And _stop pretending that,_ for Frank's sake, because I know it's not true!" Clemson yelled at him through his tears, "I have no idea why, but I just know that you can!"

Mea started to contradict him, but when he opened his mouth to speak, he coughed again, and his body convulsed; the spasms were followed by more oil filling his mouth and trickling from the corners. "It must've been that penguin," he finally admitted when he was able to speak again, "Since ever I reactivated, it was like that…"

"He will fix that and make you invulnerable again! And he will help me fix the rest of you, too!" Wiping his tears away, Clemson stood up and inspected the motorbike. It lay next to him overturned, the metal twisted on its front and sides. A black fluid was pooling where the top half of it met the ground, and thousands of tiny stars reflected in it. It was most likely damaged beyond repair. Yet he managed to lift it back up onto its wheels again.

"What the hell do you want to do?" Mea asked.

Clemson raised his eyebrows. "We're going back to the zoo, of course."

"Are you nuts?!"

"What else can we do?! This thing won't take us anywhere, and I can't fix you out here. I have my tools, but that's all; what you need is a bunch of spare parts."

Mea coughed again, thick rivulets of oil dripping down his chin.

"Okay," he managed to say through clenched teeth, "Guess you're right."

The last words barely came out louder than a whisper as he choked on the oil in his throat. The pain was taking its toll on his mind, and it showed in his glassy eyes. When Clemson bowed down to lift him onto the bike, Mea practically fell into his arms. This scared him a little; he'd seen him tired before, but he'd never seen him weak like that in front of him.

Clemson moved the motorbike out on the road again and eased it along as he walked, and Mea sat slumped in the seat, holding tight and trying to keep all his vital functions running.

This was how they made their long, long way back to the Hoboken Zoo.

The sight of the Alchimus Hospital greeted them when they returned, towering there over the zoo walls just as they had left it, huge, black, threatening.

Clemson had barely taken a couple of steps past the golden gate and back inside the zoo when three figures emerged from the trees nearby and came towards them across the dark visitor paths. He stopped dead in his tracks, a freezing fear gripping his heart.

Savio and his goons were coming for him.

They were coming to kill him, and this time Mea wasn't strong enough to defend him.

A second later Hans and Lulu stood before him in full pink attire, each of them pointing a gun at his chest. A little behind them was Savio, stringing himself out long and smiling down at the scene, and they could hear the threatening clicks of his fangs.

"Hi, Clemson." Hans batted his eyelashes at him with a broad, sly smile. "Enjoyed your little trip? – Well, you know what comes next, don't you." – He gazed at the damaged android, whose body was shaken over and over from electrical shocks. "Oh, that looks bad. Tsk, tsk."

"Remember what we agreed on!" Clemson furiously said to Savio, ignoring the puffin, "You can't just cast me out of your protection like this!"

"Oh, but I can," the giant boa hissed back at him, "Now I have any right to do so. Because I don't recall you asking for my permission to run off like this!" – He nodded towards the open main gate.

"Sorry." Lulu lowered her weapon a bit, shrugging apologetically. "But there's still a debt to pay, and Savio says he doesn't want to wait any longer."

"That's right. – Now close your eyes, Lulu." – Hans put his gun to Clemson's temple and moved very close as he whispered to him, "Don't worry; the world ain't going to miss a lying bastard like you."

"If you don't take that gun down right now, I'll shoot your ass, you son of a bitch!" Mea growled at him, although it was obvious that there was no way he was capable of implementing this threat in his current condition.

"Oh, really?" The puffin's voice was soft, almost sensuous.

"I swear if you fire him up, I'll rip your heart out and feed it to you, damn it!"

Hans lowered the gun, apparently feeling provoked. "You know, if I couldn't even lift a finger, I wouldn't talk too big!" He stepped forward with a soft push against Mea's shoulder, which was enough to send the android falling off the motorbike, tumbling in the mud in a heap of crunched metal limbs.

"Stop it!" Clemson stepped between them, raising his paws in a gesture of definite capitulation. "We'll go. We'll go into the Alchimus Hospital and hand ourselves over to Charlie; there's no need to kill us in advance." – If Charlie had mercy on them, perhaps there _was_ a small chance they'd get away with their lives after all, but if the crazy puffin opened fire now, there wouldn't be much hope. Hans didn't seem to trust him; he wouldn't relent until Lulu took him by the flipper.

"Please," she said to him; it was clear that she'd hate to see him murder anyone.

Hans' smile disappeared, and he pointed at Mea.

"Alright. But give me his weapon. I won't be tricked again!"

Clemson bowed down to Mea to take his gun and do as he was told, but just then a group of humans came rushing up the gravel path behind them.

"Why can't those stupid animals just stay in their habitats, like they're supposed to?!" one of the men said, sounding annoyed, while he placed a cage over Clemson and Mea. "There. And now you stupid beasts please _stay inside there_ , for crying out loud!"

"The pink ones, too?" another man asked.

"No, leave the pink ones alone. At least for now."

Hans and Lulu frolicked around the humans' legs, making soft sounds and waving with the pink bowties they were wearing, trying to look as cute as possible, but the fake smiles plastered on their oh so innocent faces made Clemson grit his teeth. As the humans lifted the cage up, he could see Savio on the patio of the Alchimus Hospital, reaching up to the window of Charlie's office, like he'd done before when he'd told Clemson he had regained his protection.

This time the window was open, and Lily Grady stood there and embraced his long neck, and he hissed very softly and gently as if not to scare her, and she turned around and said, "Look, Daddy, the men have captured the ugly monkeys."

And Zookeeper Charles came up behind her and patted her head and said, "That's fine, dear, isn't it." Then he slipped on some surgical gloves. "And now I'm going to, uh… check out what's wrong with them."

* * *

At the same time the penguins and the lemur pack, their royal advisor still missing in action, were hurrying through the dark corridors of the Alchimus Hospital again, heading for the lower levels. Skipper was worried about Julien. On this rescue mission they would need to run and fight and overall give their very best, and the lemur king sure as hell wasn't fit for that. He was still in a great deal of pain and had trouble walking at all, Hoover Dam, he was even bleeding, leaving a thin red trail on the linoleum floor behind them. He badly needed to rest, and someone to calm him down – this was what Maurice would usually do, but now he was gone, and while Skipper didn't know the new lemur too well, he was sure that she wouldn't do it; it was obvious that she wasn't someone who was particularly good at offering warm words. In fact, right now Clover was still so caught up in her rage she was constantly hissing to herself how she would go about killing Clemson in the cruelest of ways all the while they were on the move.

Maybe Private could have done it, but Skipper still refused to let him know anything about this; the rookie had lately had to witness already too much evil in this place. As Julien was with them all along now, Skipper had to make an effort to hide it from him, though; when Private understood that he wouldn't answer him, he went to ask his other brothers about it. But Rico pretended not to know about anything, and Kowalski told him to focus on the mission ahead of them and on avoiding any new damage instead of worrying about damage that had already been done.

So after all it would've definitely been wisest not to take Julien along at all, but when Skipper ran a flipper down the lemur king's back in a quiet moment and asked him if he would rather stay behind and wait outside with Mort, Julien shook his head determinedly and insisted he would try to save Maurice's life at all costs.

And so a little later they were assembled all together in the hospital basement, luckily nowhere near the cremation room; Skipper guessed it could only be accessed through the disappeared passageway in Charlie's office.

It was freezing cold down here, and they were huddling closely together. "Skipper, what are we doing down here?" Private asked, and everyone looked at the leader.

"Shouldn't we rather be somewhere on the upper floors instead, where they've very likely taken Maurice?!" Clover added impatiently.

"No. Even though we're a larger group now, we might not be able to find him fast enough to prevent him from becoming seriously injured. Right now we might not know where he is, but from down here we still have the possibility of saving him in time from being experimented on..." He gazed around the room.

"There's a generator down here somewhere, I saw it on the floor plans before. Shut it down and there will be zero power in the entire hospital. All the lights out. No electricity. And then let's see how they operate completely in the dark! – The time we'll have gained until they come running down here to check out what's wrong, we'll go up and get Maurice out of there. That is, if we find him fast enough then, which we hopefully will, thanks to the plans." – He looked at them one after the other. "Alright, who's got the plans?"

But they all looked at each other shrugging, and then looked back to Skipper, giving him a helpless smile. Kowalski was the first one to speak up. "Um… Clemson might still have them." Julien winced as he heard the name. Rico gave his brother a nudge with the flipper, and Kowalski cleared his throat, seeming embarrassed.

"Should I run back and get them?" Clover asked, straining to let show that she wasn't afraid at all to meet him, but Skipper shook his head.

"No, you've really run enough for today. Besides we have no time to lose. We'll have to do it without them. Maybe we can find something on the way up to block the passage for the humans; that'll buy us more time."

"Hey, I think see it!" Mort called out suddenly; he'd strayed a little apart from the group and curled himself up near a wall; an outline of what appeared to be a door shaped along the wall above him. He lay down with the left side of his face to the floor, so that he could look under the door. "I see the gerator! It's in there!"

" _Generator_ , Mort –," Clover said to him as they hurried over to him.

"Yes, that's what I'm saying!" He looked up at them with big, happy eyes and then hopped up and down under a bright yellow sign on the door. Kowalski's communication device read out to them: DANGER. HIGH VOLTAGE. The crack under the bottom of the door was very wide, and they could clearly hear that the generator inside was turned on, operative.

"Yeah, that must be it," said Skipper. He tried the handle, but it wouldn't turn. The door was locked. – "Rico, a hairpin, if you please!"

The rogue penguin made a choking sound and then handed Skipper one. It didn't work. No matter how hard they tried, the door wouldn't budge. Rico even tried using a crowbar on it, but that accomplished nothing except hurting his flipper. He got angry about this and wanted to try it next with a stick of dynamite, but Skipper said it was too dangerous because of the electricity; blowing up the whole building now and burying everyone inside on doing so, including them, wouldn't serve anyone any good.

Instead the leader asked his second-in-command, "Any options, Kowalski…?"

"There's no way to shut the generator down directly from here. There seems to be no fuse box out here for it either; it must be inside that room, too, so we have no access to it. But maybe there's a different way… The ground is wet here; that means there must be at least one water pipe around here somewhere. – And I think it's that one." – He pointed at a large pipeline that led from the ceiling and then disappeared in a wall. – "Now if we open the valve of that pipe and let the cellar fill up with water, it will run through that crack under the door inside this room, too, and eventually short out the generator as soon as the water level is high enough."

Skipper thought carefully about this; just now that Kowalski said it, he noticed the floor beneath his webbed feet was indeed wet and slippery.

"Brilliant. Let's flood this place!" Clover clenched her fists and stood poised to start.

"Now hold up a second! You all know what this means, right?" – Skipper looked them in the eyes one by one to make sure he had their full attention before he continued, "As soon as we got the water running, we'll _turn on our heels and get the hell out of here_ because if we're standing in water as it makes contact with a high voltage cable, we'll be toast."

"I like toast," said Mort and smiled. Julien and Private nodded fearfully, moving a little towards the exit already, and Rico, too, made a sound of approval, although he didn't seem to fully grasp the context of this.

"Too bad we won't see what the dumb humans will do then when they come down here," Clover said with a wicked smile.

"Alright, everyone ready? – Kowalski, what are you waiting for?!"

The tall penguin was observing the pipe closely through his magnifying glass. "I'm sorry, Skipper. That's an unusual valve. It can only be closed or opened with a special kind of wrench."

Skipper moaned. "Oh come on, we're running out of time here...! Hoover Dam, this building is giving me a headache."

But just then Private remembered something; he hastily poked Rico's flipper with his. "Rico, the wrench! That big wrench we found in the cabinet blocking the stairs when we were here for the very first time! – Maybe it's for one of the pipes in the basement…?"

"Uhuh!" Rico nodded eagerly and hacked it up and then handed it to Kowalski.

It fit on the first try.

"Perfect!"

They heard a high-pitched whine as metal scraped against metal, and the valve turned a few degrees. Kowalski got a better grip on it and turned again. His entire body was shaking from the effort; the others ran to help him. The whining sound grew in intensity. He pushed on. After another turn, the valve opened faster, and they could hear steam rushing out of the venting tube. Kowalski continued turning the wrench. Sweating and exhausted, he leapt back with a cry when jets of water began shooting out of the pipe.

The rest of the group stared at the scenario with wide eyes. Within a minute the floor beneath their feet was almost entirely flooded.

"Wow. That _did_ work," said Skipper, "Now everybody _run for your lives!_ "

They were barely up again on the first floor when the few lights around them went out, and they were enveloped by utter darkness. For a moment everything was silent, so silent it was almost surreal.

"Now Maurice is safe," Julien whispered into the darkness.

Then they heard a door open somewhere, and human feet rushing down the halls and stairways in the dark. Searching each other's paws and flippers, they allowed their eyes to adjust to the darkness before they proceeded further with great caution, following the fluorescent strips on the floor and stairs. But when they turned into another hallway, an acrid scent clung to the walls there… the scent of smoke.

And then white foam began gushing from the sprinklers in the ceiling and at the same time red emergency lights started flashing in every corridor of the hospital, along with a loud, clanging alarm that almost completely deafened them.

The penguins looked at each other, eyes wide in horror. Skipper clamped his beak shut.

"Okay… that wasn't planned," he yelled against the screech of the fire alarm.


	20. Chapter 19 - High Voltage

CHAPTER 19

 **HIGH VOLTAGE**

Maurice's eyes widened when he saw who was taken inside the operating room by the doctors and would soon be sharing his cage.

" _You!_ " He clenched his paws into fists; the rage welling up within him was beyond his control. As soon as the human had closed the cage door behind the three of them again and turned his back on them, Maurice began beating Clemson up with all the force he could muster. His fist came down with such force that it crushed a bone in Clemson's face.

"Who on earth do you think you are?! How can you _ever_ do something so cruel, so senseless, so violent to an animal? There really isn't anyone sicker than you are! I was wrong to think there couldn't be anyone worse than Chainsaw Charlie in this place, but there is. It's you, Clemson. You're the only real monster in here. You worthless, skygoddamn bastard! Rico should have killed you! _Killed_ you!" With each word from his lips he hit Clemson harder, and Mea lay next to them, barely able to move, and cried at the top of his damaged lungs for Maurice to stop. But the older lemur just kicked him in the flank so hard blue sparks flew and told him he wasn't afraid of him now.

Clemson started to bleed profusely when Maurice was punching his ribs and head and finally knocked him to the ground. In his wildest imagination he could never have believed the older lemur capable of such rage, such violence, and somehow he still believed he wouldn't be if this wasn't all about Julien.

"Don't…," he mumbled, but his voice was cold, as if the horror of it no longer touched him. He didn't even try to dodge Maurice. He didn't beg for him to stop. He didn't shed any tears.

Eventually it wasn't mercy that kept Maurice from beating him further, but the return of a human. "What the hell wrong with those beasts," the man asked as he noticed the two lemurs thrashing about in their cages. He then opened the door and took Maurice out of the cage, who kept on struggling in his grip and yelling curses at Clemson.

"I have no idea," Zookeeper Charles' voice answered from the other side of the room, "Anyway, we're ready over here, so please get me one of them at once."

"This one, Dr. Grady?" the doctor asked, holding up Maurice, who was still writhing wildly in his grip. Zookeeper Charles looked up from the operating table which he'd been preparing along with a physician and a nurse.

"No, this one's too wild. We need to go about this next experiment with the utmost of precision, so get me one of the calmer monkeys. Take the wild one to the animals in the next room instead; there should be another operating team working with them already."

Maurice shot Clemson a last threatening glare before the man locked him up in a separate cage and carried him away.

Clemson and Mea exchanged gazes. "This is between you and me then..." Clemson murmured, biting his lip.

Gathering the last of his strength, Mea pulled himself up, struggling to get back on his skates. "I'm going," he declared in a determined tone. Clemson frowned.

"I don't think that's such a good idea. You've been damaged already, and –."

"I said I'll do it! And this time I'm not going to argue with you about it." – Mea held a paw up to silence him, and there was something in his voice that kept Clemson from contradicting him. – "As long as there's just any unbroken screw left in my body, I won't let you become Charlie's slave ever again!"

Clemson blinked his eyes in surprise. He wouldn't have expected this after all they'd been fighting over before, but the moment the human's tall shadow fell over their cage, he couldn't help but feel grateful for it. _Take care_ , he wanted to say but didn't get the time to.

"…They're actually _lemurs_ , Dr. Grady," said the man as he opened the door and reached inside, and Mea willingly leapt in his hand.

"It doesn't really matter, does it," the zookeeper muttered while he strapped Mea down to the operating table which he then inserted into the same kind of machine Clemson had been tortured in before. The others had already turned it on; keeping the power low yet, they were waiting for the circuits to warm up and stabilize.

"I know we're close, so very close. But we still lack the fundamental theoretical breakthrough which we need so desperately," Charlie mumbled with gleaming eyes, more to himself than to his employees. "But this time, it's happening. I'm telling you, gentlemen, it's finally happening!"

Then Clemson heard the terrible, familiar sound of the round door of Charlie's electrocution machine when the lock clicked shut, and he closed his eyes and turned his head away. The humans' eyes were glued to the computer screens in front of them while the machine started up with an accelerating whine.

And then Mea's cries filled the room, muffled a little by the thick walls of the glass cylinder around him – still Clemson had never heard him scream like this. These were long, piercing screams of pure terror, and they were repeated over and over, and Clemson kept his eyes tightly closed and curled himself up behind his tail, his shoulders shaking, heaving.

"Look at these values!" Charlie enthusiastically called over the noise of the machine.

When Clemson dared to peek through his fingers again, he saw a big spot of oil flying up against the inside of the glass cylinder. Another followed. Some more splattered beside it. And then the dark brown liquid was spraying up like an obscene rain shower, striking the glass sides of the cylinder and running, obscuring what was going on inside, and flecked through the brown were tiny red and blue ribbons of wires, fragments of microchips and circuit boards.

And then Clemson couldn't see any of it anymore as scalding tears welled up in his eyes, and he clutched his tail so hard it hurt.

"Look at these incredible values," he heard Charlie call out again.

"Actually, Dr. Grady, I think there's something wrong with the computer," said the nurse, "No living animal has DNA samples like that…!"

"What?!" Charlie was just about to take a look at the monitor she pointed at – an image of a blue parabola, expanded to fit the full screen, curved up and down there in a series of blurry, ill-defined dots – when the screen suddenly went black. A moment later the overhead lights blinked, stuttered briefly, and died. For a moment everything around them was cast in blackness; the ember at the tip of his assistant's cigarette was the only light source in the operating room.

Mea's cries inside the electrocution machine subsided.

"What the hell is happening?!" Charlie cursed.

"Looks like we have a power outage," the physician muttered. Charlie furiously slapped the side of the computer when it refused to turn on again. "No! Not now!" He gave it a few kicks of current and tried again. "For Heaven's sake, not right _now!_ "

Just then a sudden blaze of bright light illuminated the entire room for an instant, and a thick cloud of smoke rushed up from the machine to meet them.

Clemson watched the humans withdraw in terror. Mea's defects must have caused an electrical overload inside the machine. At the back of it an overheated cable had come loose; still charged as it was, it carried current along the line to the junction box in the wall, causing sufficient heat to ignite the wood and insulation there.

Acrid smells started to fill the room, and then the fire alarm went off. The wailing of the siren broke the darkness with a sound that instilled a feeling of dread in everyone present, and at least partly, there was light again; bands of red light began flickering around the room from the smoke detectors, glowing a red warning.

Maintaining a cool façade, Charlie ordered the emergency core cooling system of the electrocution machine activated.

"It's not possible, Sir!" the physician cried.

"Why the hell not?!"

"It has to be activated electrically by command from the computer."

– And the wires of the computer as well were plugged into the damaged junction box. So when the physician tried to reboot it in order to activate the cooling system, it only caused another, now-quite-impressive shower of sparks to spray from the junction box.

The electrocution machine began to hum, then to vibrate, then to hiss and spark and tremble so hard it was practically shaking the floor. More smoke erupted from somewhere beneath it, and then flames began licking the back side, and minutes later it was almost completely engulfed in fire. Columns of smoke shot into the air and gathered into thick clouds under the ceiling.

"Shouldn't we call the fire department?" asked the nurse. The other two men frantically looked around the room for a fire extinguisher, but there was none.

"No! Are you serious?!" Charlie shook his head with ferocious intensity. "Then they'll just start asking questions again! They mustn't see what we're doing here; none of the authorities must ever know! I say we finish that experiment now and finally find the answer we've been searching for so long, and then no one will ever ask us any stupid questions again – because we'll be damn rich and famous and most of all far away from here before anyone ever notices." He stumbled over to the junction box and, to everyone's horror, plugged the charred wires that had come loose from the shaking machine back in. "– There; it's damaged, but it'll last long enough in order to deliver the final result." With a wave of his hand he signaled his assistant to check the computer. "Now push the button to activate the cooling unit."

"But, Dr. Grady…"

"Push it!" he yelled at him; but the man turned on his heels and fled the smoke-filled room instead. "Coward!" Charlie hissed after him. The nurse took him by the shoulders, looking him straight in the eye.

"Charles, killing animals is one thing, but killing _people_ is a completely different story! And if you risk blowing this thing up, it could easily kill us!"

"But the values…"

"Screw your values!" she cursed, coughing badly now from the smoke, "You became so obsessed with finding your damn answer that you didn't even read them properly! – Don't you see what this is?!" She pointed, finger trembling with rage, over to the electrocution machine. "We've had that one before and it gave us exactly the same values; that's not an animal! You've put a stupid _robot_ inside there, and this is why the values are so strange! Don't you know what your predecessor Frances Alberta has done around this place?! This is one of her machines apparently still left from back then, nothing more! This isn't what you're looking for, so it sure as hell isn't worth risking our lives to continue that experiment any longer!"

At these words Zookeeper Charlie became very quiet. "A robot…?" He adjusted his glasses to hang below the bridge of his nose and then looked at the screen again. The smoke had become so thick in the meantime that it had become almost impossible to read any of the dials or instruments. "You may have a point there. But then these values… oh, you mean… hm."

The cooling system hummed into life after all. They dialed it up to hundred per cent power, hoping to hear water flush, which would start to bring down the core temperature – but this was not to be. In less than a minute the pumps to boost the water pressure stopped working again; the overheating had damaged them as well. Heat and pressure inside the machine's core began to rise… Finally the engine seized up with a grinding crunch, and the temperature gauge climbed into the red.

"It's going to blow," the nurse yelled, " _It's going to blow!_ "

Now even Charlie appeared to be on the verge of panicking – a second later the rest of them ran out the door, ran for their lives, without thinking about the animals left behind in the operating room. However, the shaking of the machine had sent almost all the cages crashing to the floor, breaking the doors open.

Clemson hurried to Charlie's computer and tried to shut it down.

The other remaining victims, two apes and a duck – Clemson had seen them before in the Hoboken Zoo, but he didn't know their names –, looked for a way out instead.

"Of course those awful humans couldn't have _left the damn door open!_ " one of the apes scolded, pulling and tugging the handle, rattling the door in its jambs, but it stayed fast. When they saw that it was no use, they turned over a table and ducked behind it for cover. From there they peeked back at the machine; it was spitting out loose nuts and bolts and crackling curlicues of electricity.

"Oh, dear," the other ape whispered, eyes wide with fear, "Oh, dear."

"Hey, lemur," the duck called over to Clemson, who was still busy with the computer displays, "Come over here and take cover! It's no use –."

But her last words turned into a shriek, a shriek that was swallowed in a shattering roar as the core of the electrocution machine exploded.

A wall of heat and a blinding sheet of fire shot at them, and their screams mingled before they were drowned out by the hiss of escaping steam and the screech of ripping metal. Even though they were covered by the table, the shockwave of the explosion knocked them onto their backs with the force of a heavyweight punch. They hugged the floor, curling up to expose as little of themselves to the wash of heat as possible. Debris flew off in every direction; unlike the rest of them Clemson was entirely without shelter, and he felt some of it scatter itself on his back like hot coals. He could smell the acrid scent of burning fur; then it became too painful to breathe through his nose. He sheltered his face with his paws and held his eyes tightly shut for what to him seemed like unending seconds.

The moment the explosion was over, he rolled over, extinguishing half a dozen small fires on his back fur. Next he frantically shook his tail, which was smoking, aching badly. He clutched it in his paws, and this caused the little flames to die out but did little to ease the pain. The other three animals seemed to be in the same state of health; however, apparently they were just so happy to be alive that they would never complain about their pain.

There they sat on the floor, a group of small animals caught in so much destruction. They embraced each other and laughed together, sharing the joy about their survival.

Clemson didn't join them.

"Look! Must be our lucky day," the duck called out, pointing a wing towards the nearest wall – the force of the explosion had blown a hole in it that several human men could easily walk through. They had found a way of escape after all. The three of them fled outside without wasting a second; there were still a lot of flames around them, and they all knew that if they didn't hurry now, they would never make it out of the building alive.

But Clemson didn't follow them. He stumbled over to the source of the heat and fire, the destroyed electrocution machine. Now it was nothing more than a hulking collection of pipes and tubes and snapped wires. Black smoke curled out of its collapsed sides.

The entire glass cylinder was splashed with oil. It had split down in the middle; the two halves of it had sloped separately. He felt his heart start to beat in full force when he pushed them fully apart.

Mea lay next to the broken operating table, motionless, with his legs bent at an unnatural angle and a crackling and spitting screen of blue haze all around him. His whole body was electrified, darting out sparks against every object around. Almost all his fuses were burned, except for a few vital ones. When Clemson removed the glass, he turned his head to see who was there; as he moved a little on doing so, he revealed a gaping hole, oozing oil and gray matter, in what was left of his chest. His palms and fingers, his feet, his tail – oil was oozing everywhere. His artificial internal organs throbbed as though they had been beaten with clubs. Every joint looked torn, every muscle.

Clemson stepped up to him as if in a trance. Everything seemed blurred and slowed down grotesquely. Red emergency lights washed across Mea's face as he bowed down to him, but he didn't hear the sirens. He reached down to take one of Mea's oily paws, but the android withdrew it before he could do so. Oil billowing from his chest, he ran his weakening gaze over his maker.

"Get out of here," he gasped, "Get away." He stirred a little to have a better look at Clemson, and oil was flowing out of his chest like a river, and Clemson knew it had to be filling his lungs, too. He shook his head.

"Not without you."

Mea licked his lips before he said in a thick-tongued response, "Don't be stupid. There's nothing you can do. If you touch me now, it'll kill you. I'm completely charged with the stuff they shot through me. Right now I carry more coulombs than a bolt of lightning."

"But…"

"Just get away. Hurry."

The words came out slurred; oil dripped from one corner of his mouth. Then he began coughing really badly; spewing and choking on oil while clawing at the ground, the android squeezed his eyes shut as scalding jolts of pain racked his malfunctioning body. Everything around him was lit up by showers of blue sparks.

Then Clemson watched his eyes flicker open again to meet his one more time; in a last clear moment he was looking at his maker again, his eyes filled with mortal agony and so great a sorrow Clemson's heart flamed in his chest at the sight.

"I love you. I love you with every impulse radiating from my electric heart," Mea whispered, "And all I ever hoped for was that you would love me back. I'm sorry if I wasn't the invention you hoped for… the friend you wanted, the lover you wished to have." His eyes were calm and fearless, his smile filled with warmth. There was no trace of either accusation or anger in his face. When their gazes met, a faint blush was tinting his cheeks.

"Thank you, Clemson, for having created me," he murmured, "For having given to me the most beautiful thing one can experience… _life._ "

Then a red-hot flame shot up from his heart and when it died out, his chest stopped heaving and his eyes fell close.

* * *

"This whole place is going to collapse!" Private whimpered as they raced towards the nearest stairwell and ascended to the second floor in a mad rush. The sound of the banshee-like screaming of the fire siren hovered hauntingly over every corridor, sending shivers down their spines, chilling their blood. Every floor was in flames by now, and the roar of the fire around them had reached a deafening intensity. Worst of all, however, was the smoke: it was everywhere, and it made their lungs feel as if they were breathing hot needles.

"Kowalski, how long?" Skipper called over to his second-in-command, coughing badly.

"I would estimate total structural failure in –."

 _"Watch out!"_ Clover yelled – a huge splintered board came falling down from the ceiling. They dodged in time, and it hit a medicine cabinet instead. Something inflammable must've been in there – a flame shot up from it as if pure oxygen had been touched with a lit match. Their eyes wide with panic, they stood with their backs braced against the opposite wall – which came tumbling down on them a moment later. They recoiled with horror – Private and Mort, who were standing closest to the wall, would've gotten away too late, if not for Clover: she leapt forward and pushed them out of the way, taking the full bombardment of bricks on herself. When the stone blocks came falling down on her, she felt as if every bone in her body was being shattered. She fell to the ground – what must've been a ton of bricks landed on top of her. For a moment everything went pitch-black.

Yet somehow, among the dozens of bricks, air was making its way through, and she could breathe. She struggled to break free, pushing and forcing her way out of the pile of debris.

Her friends helped to pull her up.

"Are you alright?" When she opened her eyes, she found Skipper's worried face hovering over her. She hurried to get back to her feet, straightened herself, and saluted.

"Yes, Sir." And then the room around her turned upside down in front of her eyes, and she collapsed into Rico's flippers.

"Clover…!" Looking highly concerned for her, the two other lemurs bowed over her, trying to shake her awake.

"Don't worry, she'll come around," Skipper tried to calm them, carefully urging them on into the next corridor, where they arrived not a moment too soon – whole sections of the large granite block that was the west wing of the building began to sag behind them. The ceiling tumbled down board by board until the entire walls around them were ripped down right along, and they were left on the bare floor. There was no time to lose – a little longer, and the rest of this area would collapse, too.

Skipper peeked down over the damaged brick wall which had come down on Clover. The flames had crept up from the basement and caused the entire first floor to become rapidly involved in fire. Parts of it had collapsed inward and fallen from what remained standing down into the underground garage, where the doctors were fleeing in their cars.

"Shouldn't there be any firemen around here by now?" Private asked.

"Uhuh." Rico nodded, shrugging his shoulders to indicate that he had no idea why there weren't any. After all, the fire had grown to inferno proportions by now. Flames weren't only erupting in the basement; now that the entire hospital was so badly wrecked, they could look right up at the third floor from where they were, or at what was left of it. To their horror it was burned down almost entirely to its wooden framework, parts of it crashing down already, too, and landing on the levels below.

"There's fire everywhere! Coming from below… and on the third floor, too!" Skipper called to Kowalski over the noise as the tall penguin appeared at his side, "How could that happen?! How could it move up there from the generator in the basement?"

"I think it's something else. It looks like something exploded on the third floor... maybe a short circuit of some kind," Kowalski replied, coughing badly. Meanwhile the smoke made breathing so hard that it seemed as if they couldn't go on.

Skipper frowned, trying to shake off the worry nagging at him. "Yeah, but Maurice…"

Just then they saw the gray lemur's silhouette emerge from the shadows behind the flames on the floor above them.

" _Maurice!_ " Julien called out his name in despair. He accidentally inhaled a large amount of smoke, causing him to cough uncontrollably. They were all calling for the older lemur now, but he didn't seem to hear them; the noises around were too loud. They could see that Maurice was trapped right where he was standing: the flames were close to him now, and they were the full height of the hallway, licking the ceiling as they advanced towards him from both sides.

They could see him gaze down at the moving cars in the underground garage again and again, and Skipper guessed what he was thinking: he could leap down onto one of them and use it as a means of escape. Despite his conscious efforts he felt a trace of panic gripping him as he became fully aware of his intention; Maurice was standing too high above to properly judge the speed of the cars, but Skipper clearly saw that he would never make it. They were moving too fast; even if he managed the jump and landed atop one of them successfully, he'd fall off at that speed, and then they'd run him over.

If he jumped now, without the shadow of a doubt he'd plunge right into his doom.

" _Don't!_ " Skipper yelled up to him over the hot, rising mist, " _Don't do it!_ "

But the older lemur was too far above; he couldn't hear him over the roar of flames and the screams of the humans echoing up from the garage.

"Rico, quickly!" Skipper ordered, "Give me a flipper here, boy…"

The rogue penguin hacked up a grappling hook for him. Skipper whirled it overhead in three wide revolutions, then hurled it up as far as he could. The hook hurtled up toward the target, sailing obediently towards the floor above and snagged on a handrail there.

Skipper grabbed the rope firmly with both flippers and pulled himself up from the ground. He braced his webbed feet on the wall and began to climb flipper over flipper, looking up at Maurice time and time again, praying he would stay where he was until he would come up to get him.

He glanced up, and Maurice was still standing there, looking desperately around, anywhere but in their direction.

He glanced up, and he was there, pulling his bushy tail over his mouth and nose to filter out the smoke before he called something back over his shoulder.

He glanced up, and the flames were so close to him now, so close… and then he jumped.

Not thinking ahead, Skipper pushed himself off the wall with all his strength and just as Maurice started to fall, he swung in towards him – and caught him right before he hit the ground. He felt Maurice cling to him, and for a moment relief suffused him, so sweet it hurt – and then they crashed right into a wall ahead of them. They had no time to brace themselves for the impact. They hit the wall with a bone-jarring thump, dropped to the floor where they rolled over a few times, and finally tumbled to a bruising halt at one of the first floor landings.

Skipper lay flat on his back, his flippers outflung, struggling to take in a breath; the air had been knocked out of his lungs. Next to him Maurice pushed himself up from the floor.

"Skipper…" His eyes were only as open as they needed to be in the stinging air, yet they showed obvious surprise when he recognized the penguin leader in front of him.

Skipper opened his beak and was finally able to drag in a sharp and painful breath. "Brave move, lemur," he panted, "But those cars are moving too fast. You wouldn't have made it."

Maurice leaned forward a little to gaze down at the underground garage again, but the cars were all gone by now. The only humans remaining in the hospital were those who hadn't made it fast enough or had fallen off something during their escape; on the ground below, Maurice could see them lying still, limbs twisted, black and burned. He quickly looked at Skipper again. "Guess you're right."

The leader got to his feet, feeling an immense sense of victory. His left foot was twisted at a horrible angle and badly swollen; his ankle hurt but worked. His left shoulder twinged whenever he moved it and so did several ribs, but he was alive. They were both alive, and that was all that mattered. He helped Maurice up, who was bruised from his knees upwards.

"Are you okay?"

The gray lemur nodded. "Yeah. Charlie didn't get me yet before this started." – He pointed around the burning room. – "Did you guys do that?"

"Sort of. We… didn't think it'd start to burn, though." Skipper blinked, trying hard to concentrate. The roar of the fire pounded in his head. "What happened up there?"

"I have no idea. I was in the room next to the one where Charlie was operating when suddenly all the lights went out and then a fire alarm went off. The floor was shaking like there was an earthquake when that happened, and this was when our cages got thrown open. I tried to flee but couldn't find my way out and ended up in that room again where Charlie and his team had been before, but they were already gone and so were the other animals… except Clemson."

"He was there, too?"

"Yeah. I asked him to leave, but no chance. He didn't want to." – Skipper raised his eyebrows, but Maurice just shrugged cluelessly in response. – "The bad thing about it is, he burned the floor plans we would've badly needed right now."

"That guy is killing us all!" Skipper slumped back against a wall and immediately regretted it as burning debris came falling down like hail. The smoke made him cough again, and he could smell some of his feathers burning.

"Never mind, we'll find a way without the plans. Let's go." He turned to leave but stopped when Maurice took him by the shoulder.

"Listen, I'm sorry… I didn't mean what I said to you before. We should've listened to you, and I…" His voice faltered, and he took a deep breath. "Thanks, Skipper."

The penguin leader gave him a weary but very honest smile.

"Never mind," he said, and he meant it, too. "Now let's hurry and join the others."


	21. Chapter 20 - Fire Chase

CHAPTER 20

 **FIRE CHASE**

They were forced to make a detour to meet up with the others again: when they had crashed against the wall, Skipper had lost the rope of the grappling hook, and now it dangled uselessly off the side of the handrail, too far away for them to reach it from their current position.

The top part of the stairwell they'd landed next to had collapsed; there was no way to ascend to the second floor from where they were. The walls around them were blacked and charred. The smoke down here was even worse; they could hardly see anything, and they barely had enough oxygen to stay conscious.

 _Stay alive!_ Maurice told himself over and over; the last time he had experienced a similar heat and rush and danger was when Timo's mega-gecko had been attacking him, and he'd made it back then, too. Choking and eyes watering, he moved forward almost blindly, not able to see clearly through the thick smoke. He shrieked in pain as a shower of red-hot embers rained down on him. His lungs were hurting, and his eyes were becoming blurry and teary; he was becoming dizzy, almost collapsing to the floor. The lack of air made him light-headed; the fiery room began spinning around him. But then a penguin flipper grabbed him, ripping him from the rising sense of vertigo, pulling him up another flight of stairs where the air was less contaminated. He blinked a few times until his vision was refocused and clear enough to vaguely make out the rest of the group, who was waiting for them on the landing at the top of the staircase.

"Maurice!" Julien's cry sank like a dagger in Maurice's heart. He clutched the younger lemur close, smelled the ash in his hair, felt the warmth of his body against his own fur. He wanted to pray to the Sky Spirits, but his thoughts were too painful, and he was in an emotional turmoil. In this profound chaos, he felt solace in simply being alive and holding Julien in his arms.

The others huddled around them, talking excitedly.

"You saved Maurice!" Mort said happily and hugged Skipper's feet.

"Clover still hasn't woken up yet!" Private worriedly told him, pulling him by the flipper.

At the same time Kowalski came up from behind him and asked, "Skipper, how do we go on from here? You've just seen yourself that the first floor is not accessible at present. The fire has spread too far there already; we'll never reach the main entrance alive!"

"What are we going to do?!" Private asked, panicking slightly. "We can't just jump out the window from the second floor, can we!"

Skipper shook his head. "No, we can't. But there must be a fire escape ladder on the outside of the building somewhere! Every building in this town with two or more stories has one."

"Yes, I saw it!" Kowalski remembered, "I saw it that one time we were on the roof of the hospital. It's located in the south wing!" He belly-slid ahead, and they followed him at the top of their speed – only to find the corridor leading there engulfed in flames, its floor almost entirely collapsed. Only the fragile, horizontally interconnected joists were left of the floor system; the heavy underlying bearer beams had already dropped. Through the large square holes they could make out that the floor below was gone completely: if they misstepped, this would result in two stories of freefall.

"There should be a fire escape ladder about two feet to the right, behind that window," Kowalski explained, pointing his flipper towards the end of the corridor at the blackened, ash-covered remains of a window, "If we manage to get there, we may have a chance to leave this hell alive. We can't go all at once, though; if we put too much weight on these joists, they'll give way. So I recommend no more than two of us go at a time."

Skipper nodded. "Affirmative. First Rico and Clover, then Mort and you, then Julien and Maurice, and finally Private and me."

Rico carefully reached his webbed foot out, testing the firmness of the ground. "Uhm…"

"Hurry, man!" Skipper urged him, "It's our only chance! Go, go, go!"

The rogue penguin took a deep breath and, carrying Clover over his shoulder all along, hurried over the grid of joists. The fragile structure trembled dangerously under his steps, but he made it. When he had reached the end of the corridor, they saw him climb up the windowsill, and then he waved his flipper to indicate to them that the escape ladder was indeed there and that they should join them.

Next it was up to Kowalski: he took Mort up in his flippers and held him tightly to his chest, murmuring a last calculation of weight to himself, and then belly-slid off.

"Wheeehehehe!" they heard Mort call out before he chuckled in the same high-pitched voice. The two of them had barely crossed half the grid when a pale-yellow tongue of flame suddenly shot up in front of them, very nearly throwing Kowalski off balance. They heard Mort's chuckles turn into cries of fear, and Private covered his eyes with his flippers. Some windows on the lower floor had been shattered by the heat; the flames were being fanned by the wind through gaping holes in the splintered glass, the additional oxygen causing them to grow even stronger. Using all the skills he'd acquired in countless years of secret penguin agent service, Kowalski finally managed to dodge the huge towers of flame shooting up like bright geysers. The rest of the group heaved a mutual sigh of relief when they had reached the other end safely after all.

Now Julien and Maurice paced toward the grid. Both of them became keenly alive to the danger as the fragile grid sagged and quivered when they put a foot on it.

Maurice felt a rasp of terror touch the nerves at the base of his spine; adrenaline was coursing through his veins, awakening ancient programmed combat reflexes. The flames engulfing the grid took an unnatural clarity. They seemed to draw themselves up in front of them like breakers on hell's own ocean.

He felt Julien's paw slide into his, and he curled his fingers around it and held it tightly.

"I'm scared, Maurice…"

He could understand him all too well. They couldn't belly-slide like the penguins, nor could they ever move as swiftly past all the brittle, dangerous spots as they could! But there was no other way… Maurice took Julien's face between his palms, his eyes locking intently on Julien's.

"We've made it so far. We're not going to give up now!"

Ringlets of silver fur fell around the lemur king's face. They felt like silk to his fingers.

"Are we going to die if we don't make it, Momo?"

"We _will_ make it."

Julien stared back into his eyes, feeling the force of every word. He held Maurice's intense gaze, held on to it tightly, and nodded. But suddenly his lips trembled with words unsaid. His paw came up, and the tips of his fingers touched the older lemur's cheek. "Maurice, I…"

"Hurry up!" Skipper called from behind.

Maurice took Julien's paw tightly in his again, and then they ran. The ground flashed beneath them; the corridor seemed to stretch out endlessly. Their eyes were fixed only on the way ahead. The hot steel beams jerked under them and began swaying in slow oscillations that tried to tip them off. The vibrations seemed to grow wilder with every step.

A loud banging noise coming from the floor below made them flinch. Maurice peered back over his shoulder – a part of the grid they had crossed only moments ago had broken down behind them. The damaged beam was glowing red and orange now, and in a matter of seconds rapidly growing flames burst from it. They crackled behind them, even louder than the hiss of their own ragged breaths in their ears. Maurice let himself fall a little behind Julien, his body offering at least a little protective distance between his king and the fire. It advanced quickly, swords of flame shimmering, slashing. He felt Julien's paw tremble in his. How could fire move so fast?

Another loud bang on the floor beneath them scraped his nerves. They'd never make it. It was too far, the fire too swift.

 _Help us, Sky Spirits…_

Heat blasted his fur as they sped further from the flames. Julien's body shuddered against his. His king, his beloved friend…

Maurice forced himself to focus on the grid again, barely visible through the ash-stained air. A tendril of sputtering flame climbed busily along the next joist, leaving charred strands behind. Maurice didn't manage to evade in time and accidentally stepped on its end. The flame was so fiercely alive with searing heat that it seemed to turn his fur to ash and melt his bare skin. The blistering agony in his toes was overwhelming; he was forced to limp for a few steps before returning to his top speed. On the other side he could see Kowalski and Rico on the windowsill reaching their flippers out towards them. Nearer, nearer, the fire at their heels, beside them, before them, ambushing them from every side –. He swallowed, the taste of smoke sour in his mouth. With his free paw he rubbed the cinders from his eyes. They were almost there…

The air thickened. Ahead and to the left, a stretcher near the wall exploded into a ball of flame. A massive burst of red blazed up from it but luckily didn't reach them. On the floor below them was a pool of roiling fire. Through the gaps in the grid they could see Charlie run from a burning ward, the sound of his cries lost in the roar of flames. He stumbled. Then fell. And then the fire consumed him.

Maurice ripped his gaze from the sight. His eyes teared as he squinted through the smoke. Terror tightened his chest. Faster. Faster. Was that his own voice screeching in his ears, ripping through the dryness in his throat?

The fire roared closer, blocking his vision until he could only see smoke billowing and waves of ash falling so thick that he could taste nothing else, smell nothing but the acrid stench. In a moment, the whole world reduced to a tunnel of heat, smoke, and ash. Julien threw his arm up, shielding his face against the embers that spun past them. Pinpricks of fire stabbed into Maurice's face, his paws, his legs. He gritted his teeth against the pain, his eyes focused on the window. They were gaining on it, closer, closer. They could still make it.

Kowalski's flippers flailed towards them. Maurice reached around Julien's waist and lifted him up towards the windowsill. He could feel him being dragged up; they were losing each other's grasp. And then Rico's flippers stretched down towards Maurice, pulled at his wrists; and a moment later he could feel the cold night air embrace him like a comforting shroud.

* * *

"They made it." Eyes narrowed, Skipper peered over to the other side. Then he looked down at the rookie. "That means it's our turn now. Are you ready?"

Private was about to nod, but then he suddenly moved out of his battle stance and looked around. "Skipper, where's Clemson? Maurice said he'd seen him somewhere in here before, and we've been running in every direction through this hospital, but still we haven't met him anywhere…"

Skipper jerked his head back towards the burning staircase they'd been in a minute before, whose bottom half was still intact, but the rest of it now lying, mangled and broken, on the ground below. "He's still back up in the operating room on the third floor." – He hesitated before adding, "Where he wanted to be."

At once the rookie's face fell – in astonishment, in consternation: "What?! But that's terrible! He's… he's going to –."

"I know. Maurice has told him, Private. But it's his decision."

But the young penguin shook his head decidedly. "No way. We've got to do something!"

"We're doing the only sensible thing to do in a situation like this: we flee while we still can. We have to get out of here before the whole building comes down on our heads, and we have no time to discuss anything else now!"

"But Skipper, we can't let that happen! Clemson may not be exactly our friend, but –!"

"Not exactly our friend?! You have no idea how evil he is," Skipper snapped, losing patience with him; "You don't know what he's done to those lemurs!"

"Well, you never tell me when I ask you!" Private retorted, "And whatever it was – do you really resent him so much you would let him _die_ because of this? – Die a long, slow, cruel death in this blazing inferno?!"

"I said we're not discussing that now! You're not questioning my authority, are you, Private?!" Skipper exploded, jabbing an accusing flipper at the rookie, silencing him.

Private cringed a little at his leader's furious tone; but then his face went soft, and he took a step toward his leader and brushed his flipper swiftly with his own.

"Please, Skipper," Private murmured, "No one on your team ever gets left behind. You… you take care of _all_ of us, don't you?"

At these words Skipper felt his heart come to a shuddering halt. Looking into Private's cornflower blue eyes, he knew it had to be a coincidence; the young penguin didn't know about his conversation with Hans before, about anything that had happened…

Yet he'd never heard words that sounded so raw, so real to him – and when he looked at Private now, for a moment all he saw was Manfredi, his face alive right there in the fire, so happy and clear-cut and full of color he could've sworn he was beside him. His expression, tensed yet fearless, his smile as he brushed his own flipper over his leader's as a last gesture of goodbye.

 _"I'm not afraid to go, Skipper. Because I know that even if Johnson and I got stuck there, you'd always help us out again."_

How lucky he'd been, how lucky, to have a man on his team who trusted him so. And he, he had let him down so badly. Skipper swallowed against the sudden thickness in his throat, his flippers moistening where they were clutching at the grappling hook he was still holding. The moment was over in a flash, and then there was Private again in front of him; the rookie's eyes were still locked on him.

"Please," Private murmured again.

"Only if you promise me that as soon as I leave, _you will get out of here right away_ ," Skipper heard himself say.

Private's eyes widened for a moment, and then he smiled so brightly his whole face lit up with merriment. "Yes. Yes, of course! I promise, Skipper!" he called out, still sounding as if he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing, "So you… you're really going to do it? You're going to save Clemson?"

Skipper looked back into the smoke-filled hallway.

"I'll try," he said, more to himself than to Private, "I'll try my very best to show you that I'm a skipper who can take care of his men."

"Oh?" The young penguin put the tip of his flipper to his beak, blinking his eyes in confusion. "But I know that you are," he replied, but Skipper didn't hear him anymore.

He burst back into the conflagration, head down and belly-sliding for the stairway back up. Third floor, to the right. He barely paused at the staircase, but the view was enough to make even a soldier like him flinch: a roaring wall of orange-red flame screamed towards him, and the heat knocked him back a couple of steps. He felt his feathers bristle from it; the entire stairway was a tunnel of fire and probably going to cave in any minute. His mind raced through the situation, analyzing it for any other possible option, but the stairs were the only way up. So he drew a deep breath and then took them four at a time, barely clearing the last one before the stairs collapsed into a mass of burned wood. He glanced back at the fiery pit at the bottom of the stairwell, grimacing. And then he turned the corner and there he was, back in the abandoned operating room.

Clemson was on the other side of the room, clutching his android's dead body against his chest as he was kneeling next to a destroyed machine which vaguely resembled an MRI scanner.

 _Charlie's torture machine,_ Skipper thought to himself, cold dread seeping into his stomach. Even now that it was damaged beyond repair, seeing it up close sent shivers down his spine. Its explosion had shaken debris loose from the walls and ceiling. A section of floor had collapsed under one big chunk of something, leaving a swath of damage in the center of the room. Smoke and flame rose up through the floor opening. Skipper bit his beak as he stepped as closely to the burning swath as the heat would allow.

"Clemson!" he called over to him; he was sure the lemur could hear him. "Come out of there!"

Slowly Clemson turned around to look back at him. He looked terrible; large parts of his red fur were blackened from the flames which had ignited the hair and burned the skin all over his body. There were streams of tears on his scorched cheeks that had smeared his ash-covered face and left little streaks down his cheek fur. "No, I won't. Go away."

"You mad fool! You're going to get yourself killed!"

"I don't care. It's all useless now. – Don't worry, Skipper; I know when I'm defeated. Now I have nothing with which to bargain anymore. In a few minutes I won't even have my life. Just go; you've got nothing to fear from me now." Something exploded at the top of the machine directly above him, and he winced when he was showered in sparks and flying embers. "No one will save me. I'll just stay… here…"

Skipper growled with his flippers crossed in front of his chest. "We told you often enough to give up on this stupid zoo domination dream!"

Clemson clenched his shaking paws into fists. "It's not about that. _It's not about that!_ " he cried out, "You just don't understand! None of you! So leave me alone, will you!" He turned away again, burying his face in Mea's singed fur. Skipper's expression softened a little.

"…Your android?" he asked – and Clemson broke down and began to cry without restraint.

Skipper hesitated. Clemson's weakness confused him. Brute force was his way to go, not psychology; he could deal better with enemies when they were stark raving mad. But it appeared that this time he had no choice. "Come on, Clemson, come on," he urged him, "Don't be silly. This doesn't have to be the end…!"

But the red lemur shook his head. "It's over. Don't you see? He's dead. And he sacrificed himself for me…" His sobs were drowned by the noise of the collapsing ceiling beginning to rain down around them from above. Skipper dove for cover to avoid getting hit by the falling parts. They had no time to lose.

"– But then he wouldn't have wanted this," he continued, trying to stay as calm as he could, "You see, he wanted you to live! He sacrificed himself so you could escape – if you stay behind now, his sacrifice was in vain!" Clemson was silent for a while. Skipper could read in his face that this was almost enough to convince him. Another burning ceiling beam tumbled down, spilling flames, catching everything it fell upon ablaze. "– Look, he might be damaged less badly than you think," Skipper went on, the smoke making him cough now, "Kowalski might be able to fix him, just like he did before…"

Clemson looked up at him again, a glint of hope entering his eyes.

"You think… you think he would do this?"

"Yes." – They needed to leave now, or they would know nothing but the sharp embrace of the flames. _–_ "Oh yes, I'm sure he would! And you know that when it comes to this he can do the most incredible things. The first time he made it right after we'd come here you wouldn't have thought it possible either, would you. At least give him the chance to try!"

And finally, Clemson got up and came close to the burning swath. He lifted Mea's body over to Skipper, who took the destroyed android safely to his side and then wanted to help Clemson over, but in the very last moment the lemur drew his paw back as if he was afraid that in the middle of the movement Skipper was going to let him fall into the blazing floor opening. Skipper reached out over it as far as he could, beckoning him forward with the tip of his flipper.

"Come on, you won't make it alone. Let me help you." He looked straight into the green eyes veiled by a haze of grief and despair. "Trust me. I'm not going to kill you." Despite the noise and pandemonium and smoke and danger, his voice was firm and in control. "Trust me, Clemson. Trust me just this once."

Finally, a shaking red paw clutched his flipper.

"Help me," Clemson whispered, "Help me survive."

And Skipper lifted him over the opening and then, for one moment, allowed the distraught young lemur to sink into his arms and feel safe. He was a warrior, a protector who always made others feel secure – even Clemson, who was his enemy, but in that moment it didn't matter, the moment they watched Charlie's machine burn down to embers. What the humans had done – the amount of suffering and harm they had caused to the animals in this place – was too vast an evil for any of them to comprehend; so, on facing the source of such incredible pain and abuse, they didn't even think about their enmity for a while.

Skipper allowed Clemson to lean on him in this terrible moment of weakness; his flippers, strong and comforting, pressed Clemson's shaking, trembling body to his own solid form, and Clemson reveled in the contact. He slid his arms around Skipper's neck and buried his face against his shoulder, blocking out everything that caused him pain.

"I'm scared, Skipper…" he murmured, "I'm so scared he's not coming back."

Charlie's machine before them was still burning like an immense funeral pyre. Its flat top flared upward, then crumbled into the flames below. The words resonated inside Skipper like a violent echo as he stared into the fire. _Not coming back…_

It all threatened to take him again. He had to swallow hard a couple of times when Manfredi's blue eyes stared back at him out of the flames. And then the moment was over; the vision vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving nothing but the darkness, the flames, and the terror swelling like a black current in his heart.

 _Pull yourself together_ , Skipper silently admonished himself, this was not Denmark, this fire was not the fire in the warehouse… Deep down there was a devastating thought reaching through his old fears – if he didn't let it go now, they would never manage to make it out of this hell. So, with all the strength he had left, he tore himself free – free from the past, free from the memories, from the waves of guilt that threatened to drown him once more.

He had sworn to bring everyone home safely. And so he would do.

At least this time.

"Let's get out of here."

They got up and scrambled out the door, both of them carrying the android's body together. The corridor was thick with smoke and breathing was difficult. Skipper looked for an exit, but the flames were everywhere, everywhere, and the heat was so intense. The building disintegrated before their eyes; there appeared to be no safe way out. Not knowing what to do, Skipper grabbed Clemson by the wrist and led him the way he considered least dangerous.

They headed straight towards a staircase. Stopping at the edge of the stairs, Skipper looked down. They were on the highest floor; it was a long way to the bottom. Carrying Mea's deadweight body was more of an effort than he'd believed; now that he was still and lifeless, the steel of his limbs seemed to weigh tons. Getting him down this rickety death trap was going to be a challenge, but they didn't have time to figure it out. They could barely breathe, and the fire was closing in on them.

Flames licking their heels, they began stumbling down the steps, Skipper going ahead. A third of the way down, a stair beneath Clemson's feet collapsed. He reached out to grab the metal banister and withdrew his paw again in pain as it touched the hot metal. Then he tumbled down the stairs after Skipper, ending up landing on top of him. Skipper was shoving the lemur aside when he suddenly heard a bone-chilling cry, terrified and pleading, arising from the flames somewhere close to them. He squinted against the smoke; at the end of the corridor he recognized a small red figure huddled in a corner. He struggled to get to his feet again, eyes and throat burning, desperately trying to catch his breath.

"Hold him," he ordered, giving Mea's dead body fully over to Clemson. The lemur nodded obediently, and Skipper belly-slid away from him towards the familiar figure of the lobster he'd met before. Either Lily Grady had chosen him as a victim again, or some of the Hobokeners had 'sold' him to Savio, or he'd just lost his way somewhere in the zoo due to his blindness and ended up here again by accident. Unlike before, Skipper found him devastated this time, and obviously fully aware of his terrible condition.

"Red Two! It's me, Skipper… You shouldn't be here!"

But the lobster was too caught up in his grief to listen. "No eyes," he whined, "I have no eyes! They've taken my eyes from me!" Feeling his face with his pincers, he carefully, desperately touched along the empty sockets and down the furrowed, marbled flesh that curved around his cheeks under his telescope eyes. "I'm blind, forever blind…!"

Skipper looked down on the lobster who didn't even have tears to weep over his fate, whose full extent he seemed to have discovered after all; the effect of the pain killers must've undoubtedly worn off in the meantime. He knelt down in front of him and took him by the arms, carefully removing the pincers from his face. "I know. I didn't have the strength to tell you back then… I'm sorry about it, Red Two, I'm so very sorry for you."

"This… this is really going to stay that way now forever, isn't it?" The small lobster was shaking all over, his chest heaving with dry sobs. "It hurts so much…"

Skipper encouragingly patted his shoulder. "I know… I, uh… we'll find a way for you somehow, I'm sure. But listen – you might not know about it because you can't see it, but there's a huge fire all around here. You need to come with me and get out of this hospital. I give this thing five minutes until it comes tumbling down like a house of cards!"

"A fire…?" The lobster stopped sobbing; at least he now seemed distracted from his horrible realization. "I've been wondering why it was so hot in here…" He sniffed one last time, and then his pincer searched the penguin's flipper and closed around it very carefully not to hurt him.

"Can you get us out of here?"

"Sure. Come on, Red Two." Skipper led the lobster back to where Clemson was still waiting for them. The lemur had slumped back against the wall, still holding the android's body tight. He looked ready to swoon. Skipper knew that they needed to hurry; if Clemson went down now, he knew he wouldn't be able to get him back up, and then there would be no way he'd get all of them out of here alive.

"Move it, lemur, come on!" With his other flipper that wasn't holding Red Two's pincer, he helped him carry Mea again. The floor beneath their feet was so hot now it was barely tolerable. Fire enveloped their faces. Every breath burned their lungs. They couldn't make it all the way down; the two lower floors were completely engulfed in flames by now. However, as they were moving down an adjacent corridor, they found another emergency exit. They struggled with the immovable door; time after time they gathered their strength and pushed with all their might against the wood, but it was swollen from the heat and clung to its closed position. A tremendous heat radiated from it; it was not to be breached. Skipper hastily looked around and noticed a narrow row of windows over their heads. Flames were billowing against them, but if they were quick, they could make it.

"Stand back," Skipper ordered; without hesitating he picked up the next thing he got a hold of – a rusty bedstead leaning against a wall – and hurled it at the window above him. The glass shattered outwards, just as planned, and Skipper climbed up and looked outside. A crowd of animals was assembled down there; intensely watching eyes stretched in amazement at the panorama of smoke and flames and eagerly followed Skipper's every movement as he appeared there on the windowsill.

He tried to visually estimate the height: a jump from here wouldn't be an easy one, but they'd survive it. He helped the others up on the windowsill.

"We'll go together. On my mark..." – A lemur's paw and a lobster's pincer were clutching his flippers tight. – "…One, two, three!"

And together they leapt out into the blissfully cool darkness of the autumn night.

Seconds later the Alchimus Hospital behind them collapsed into utter ruin.


	22. Chapter 21 - Burned To A Cinder

CHAPTER 21

 **BURNED TO A CINDER**

The sun had scarcely arisen when the crowd of animals stood assembled in the smoldering ruins of the Alchimus Hospital. Clouds of black smoke filled the air, making it hard to tell what time of day it was.

The entire burned site resembled ground zero of an atomic bomb – a terrible mess of rubble, piping, insulation, wires, and general debris of every description. Some of the fires were still burning lazily, but it seemed as if most of them had died out as there wasn't much more of the building left to burn; however, the flames had spread to the habitats in close proximity as well, causing vast amounts of damage over the entire Hoboken Zoo.

The scorched debris still pulsed with such a fierce red glow that none of the Hobokeners could believe the catastrophe was over. Charlie's tortures had been going on in this fake Animal Care Hospital for so long; everyone was fiercely glad that it was finally gone now, yet struck with dismay and horror as they witnessed its total destruction. Although almost all of them had a very colorful past, the vast extent of the carnage affected them yet: the pitiful screams of the wounded and dying humans who hadn't made it out of the building in time and now lay injured on the ground slippery with blood; the stench of entrails and gore hanging heavy in the air; and worst of all, the sight of the mangled, burned corpses which lay there in piles everywhere, some humans but most of them animals. Those animals hadn't died right there in the fire; from the way they were piled up over one another and strapped together, everyone could see that they'd been Charlie's victims, and they'd been stored like this to be cremated. Now they would never face this fate but instead remain here, an overwhelming mass of dreadful evidence for Charlie's crimes.

Somewhere amid them a pink-hooded human girl's figure emerged; having wondrously survived and even remained fairly unscathed, Lily Grady was climbing around in the ruins calling out over and over again, "Daddy, Daddy, where are you?"

Then, approaching from the distance, they heard sirens blaring: the fire department responded to the scene after all. When the firefighters began arriving with their gear and supplies, the surviving animals – both the Hobokeners and the New Yorkers – withdrew to the most remote part of the zoo to avoid coming into contact with the humans.

The rest of the New Yorkers' group then hastily made their way through the crowd of animals towards Skipper and the ones he'd saved. Kowalski approached his leader before the others did. He didn't leave Skipper any time to speak. Instead he did something he'd done only once before in his life: he slapped his leader hard across the face.

"Are you stupid?!" the usually so calm and controlled scientist penguin yelled at him, "Why did you run back in, knowing that the building was about to collapse into flames? You could've gotten yourself killed! Haven't we witnessed enough horror here? In the moment of our victory, should we have faced the worst – losing our leader, our friend?! And for what, for what?" – He pointed at Clemson, who was kneeling on the ground behind Skipper's back and holding his android close. – "Do you have any idea how much you've risked, only to save that criminal?!"

His face blanched at the exact same moment he struck Skipper, and he withdrew his flipper as if it stung. "Sorry," he murmured, "But you really needed to hear that."

He bit his beak and waited for the explosive retort from his commanding officer, but Skipper just stood there. He didn't reply anything, not even touch where the red imprint of his brother's flipper was forming on the skin under his feathers. All of a sudden he just seemed so worn out by the fatigues and excitement of the past events, maybe he even appreciated Kowalski telling him this. From behind the tall penguin's back Private ran up to his leader and immediately wrapped his flippers around him.

"I'm sorry, Skipper, I'm so sorry." Tears ran down his face as he hugged him.

"It's my fault! If I hadn't insisted so much on having everything my way, you wouldn't have risked your life like that –!"

From the look the tall penguin gave him Skipper could tell that Kowalski had already reprimanded him gravely; without a doubt he believed it was the rookie's words alone that had led Skipper to make this irrational decision.

"I didn't want you putting yourself in danger like that," the young penguin sobbed, "I didn't mean what I said to you… I never meant to hurt you or to say you wouldn't take enough care of us, because I know that you always do your best! And if you hadn't come back out, I would've never been happy again because it would've always felt like this was my fault. Because really, in one way or another it would've felt like it was me who forced you to make this decision. But I swear I didn't want you risking your health, your _life_ , least of all for someone who is our enemy – oh Skipper, please believe me! I… I just thought you could make it because you can make almost anything, and…"

"…And you see, I _have_ made it," Skipper finally brought himself to speak, wrapping his flippers around the rookie and hugging him back, "So there's nothing to worry about now." – The rookie looked up at him with tearful eyes. "I'm serious, Private. The decision to take this risk was mine alone, and I am the one to judge my own skills best. If I hadn't been sure I could make it, I wouldn't have done it. But I was – and you see, I haven't overestimated myself, so let's not talk about this anymore. Let's just be glad it's all over now. For good."

Kowalski gave him a doubtful look, as though wondering whether Skipper really meant what he said or just pretended to have had everything under control in order to make Private feel better, but before he could say anything, the lemurs gathered around them.

Clover had recovered from her swoon shortly after they'd left the hospital and was back on her feet, looking as fit as ever. "It's _not_ over yet," she said harshly, and they saw she had a gun in her paw – Hans' gun, which she must have picked up somewhere in the ruins –, and she pointed it at Clemson. "That's what you deserve for what you've done to your king," she told him, her face and tone of voice devoid of any emotion, "– And to all of us!"

Clemson closed his eyes, pulled Mea tighter against his body and buried his face in the lifeless android's chest.

"No." Skipper took Clover by the wrist, forcing her to lower the gun a bit. "He's unarmed. And I didn't go all the way back in there risking my neck, just so you can finish him off now!" – But she furiously yanked her paw free from his grip and glared at him.

"Step aside," she ordered, "This is my duty as the king's guardian. Do not try to hinder me from fulfilling it."

"No!" The penguin leader reached out his flipper in front of the gun's muzzle in a way that it was crossing her firing line, but this time she wouldn't lower the weapon.

"For the love of Frank, step aside!" she hissed at him in a tone so low and threatening it sent chills up Skipper's spine, and he saw a sheer blind fury blazing in her eyes as she added, "– Or I'll shoot him after I put the first bullet right through your flipper!"

"Now hold it, Clover!" Maurice and Julien stepped up to her, taking her by the shoulders. "Skipper and the others have saved our lives!"

For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then, although fuming with anger, Clover finally lowered the gun. "Well, why would he ever do such an utterly _stupid_ thing as to save someone like him?!" she yelled, her eyes still flashing menacingly at Clemson.

"You're the lemur king," Skipper said to Julien, "You can't tell me it's okay to kill a lemur! Not even that one!"

"Well…" Julien started to answer something but stopped. Then he was silent, looking as if he couldn't quite make up his mind.

" _I_ would let _this_ lemur die any time," Clover hissed, "Oh, I hoped so much he wouldn't make it! When I heard he was in that hospital, too, I hoped he'd burn to death, or get chopped to pieces by that mad zookeeper, or buried alive when the building caved in! – You know what he's done, all of it!" Exasperated, she pointed an accusing finger at Skipper. "It would've been so easy to get rid of him like this. Why, oh why did you have to ruin it?!"

The penguin leader didn't yield one bit. "Because it would've felt like I'd killed him. And killing is murder," he said calmly, firmly, "It always is, even if it's out of revenge. Taking lives is never the answer. There's already too much violence and chaos in the world to start justifying even more murdering. – Look at that!" He waved his flipper across the heaps of corpses in the ruins around them. "Hasn't there been enough death already? They sure haven't all been righteous animals, but every death is one too many. And unless it's an act of self-defense, which is clearly not the case right now, murder is only an act of evil. No animal will ever be wise enough to decide whether or not another animal deserves to live or to die."

– With his flipper still put out protectively in front of Clemson, Skipper took a slight step towards her. "Believe me, I know what it feels like; I've been at the very same point more than once. But think about it, Clover; please reconsider. You see, it's actually a matter of ego. We can't take the law into our own paws or flippers, you know, and start trying to make reasons for why we are allowed to take another animal's life. It's… it's unacceptable."

Clover didn't seem fully convinced; however, something seemed to vibrate through her at the words, and her expression softened the tiniest bit.

"– And moreover, it's just plain useless. It will make nothing undone, and even less serve to righten any injustice. On the contrary; if you do this now, if you kill him, you're not any better than him. Do you really want this? Do you want to be like him?"

Clover said nothing. She seemed to be thoroughly pondering everything he'd said; Skipper was glad he'd been able to calm her fury at least so much as to make her think well before she did what she was about to do. Then he stepped aside, leaving unsheltered space between Clemson and the lemurs. "If you're still convinced that this is the right thing to do, at least leave it to the victim," he added, jerking a flipper at Julien.

Obviously agreeing that this would be the best way to handle the issue, Clover nodded and handed her king the weapon. "He's right. You are, by far, the one most affected by all of this – so the decision is yours, King Julien."

Julien stood there, facing his arch enemy, clutching the gun with both paws.

Clemson kept his eyes closed and didn't even look at him; although it was his life that was at stake, he didn't say a word the entire time they were talking. He kept a stony silence and didn't sigh or lament or even once beg for mercy; it was as if he silently accepted the burden of whatever fate would come upon him.

Julien hesitated only for a moment; then he turned the gun around and offered the handle to Skipper. "I will never do anything that makes me resemble you in any way," he said to Clemson and then turned away from him.

Disappointment was etched all over Clover's face, but then she shrugged.

"Oh, well. Having you face that techno lemur being blown to pieces seems to be a nice punishment already," she said to Clemson, kicking her foot against Mea's damaged flank, "Though a way too mild one, of course."

Clemson flinched badly when she did this, looking terrified. Suddenly life appeared to come back to him. "But you… you _will_ help me again to revive him, right?" he asked Kowalski in a tone of voice so humble one could almost believe he was going to say _please_.

The tall penguin raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think I ever would?" he replied coldly. Clemson's face turned a shade paler. He looked up at Skipper.

"But you… when we were in there, you said…"

"What?" The leader looked down on him, eyes narrowing. "Do you want sympathy, or what?! After all you made Julien live with, you can bloody well learn to live with that loss of yours now, you pathetic excuse for a soldier!" he added with sudden fierceness and then slapped the red lemur across his face so hard his lip started to bleed.

Clover's thirst for violence still didn't seem quenched, yet she looked a little more satisfied after this action.

Before they could discuss anything else, they began to hear in the distance what they first believed to be the sound of thunder. They gazed up, and from far off in the distant sky there appeared to be what looked like a comet. The clouds around it glowed with a purple haze and were soon lit up with different colored balls of light as the main attraction drew nearer: a bulbous-shaped object moving swiftly through the sky as it followed a path all on its own towards the ruins of the Hoboken Zoo. With their eyes wide open, the assembled animals watched as the object began descending towards them, and now they saw it was a giant red rocket ship. The engines were put into reverse thrust to slow down the landing, and then the vessel finally came to a halt right in front of where the Alchimus Hospital once had been. Skipper and Kowalski exchanged a glance – they were both sure they had seen the logo on the red hull before – when the door in the base of the ship slid open, and framed against a pale blue background stood the familiar sleek figure of a dolphin, a malicious smile on his face.

Floodlights of different color flashed out of the hull at unpredictable intervals, lighting up the smoke-covered sky like daylight, and over a loudspeaker boomed a song a hundred voices joined in:

 _"There's a sea mammal on a roll,_

 _Evil swims in his soul_

 _You'll fear his flippers' clutch_

 _Surprisingly smooth to the touch_

 _Look out below_

 _For your fluke-tailed foe –_

 _He's Dr. Blowhole!"_

"Yeah! Oh, yeah!" Red Two clapped his pincers with enthusiasm, singing along full-throatedly with every lyric, together with his countless brothers.

Dr. Blowhole's dark cackling laughter echoed through the night as he navigated his Segway scooter down a ramp that slid out from under the door, followed by hordes of his lobster minions.

"Attention, panicky mob!" he called out as he came forward to meet the animals, "Make way, make room for the ruler of land and sea!"

He seemed so out of place, somehow, amid the smoldering remnants of the zoo, looking as hale and fresh and energetic as he did, his skin all smooth and shiny silver, a minimal touch of turquoise eyeshadow highlighting his one remaining eye. He came to greet the New Yorkers first, who were standing a little apart from the Hoboken Zoo residents.

"Well, _pen-gyu-ins_ ," he cackled, "We meet once again! I admit I certainly didn't expect to meet _you_ here… After all, Hoboken was never your favorite, was it?" He grinned in amusement at his old foes; the surprise of his appearance had evidently left them speechless. The New Yorkers' team stood silent for a while just staring at the evil aquatic overlord and his army of crustacean warriors.

"Dr. Blowhole…?" Skipper brought himself to speak after all, "What the hell are you doing here?"

The dolphin bent over the handlebars of his scooter, raising his remaining eyebrow.

"Why, I've been asked to come here!"

"By whom?"

"By Agent Twelve."

"What…?"

"It's true. I called him," they heard a voice behind them, and it was Rhonda who came up to them. "The game is getting boring. Sorry, Savio." She shrugged, looking back at the destroyed hospital. "It seems to be over now anyways."

"But, Rhonda…" Savio was obviously trying to keep her from leaving. "Please stay!"

"Sorry, it's definitely time to get back to work now. After all, I'm an agent, and he's my boss, remember?" She jerked her big head toward the evil scientist. "Thanks for the ride, Doc."

"Well, far be it from me to let down one of my best spies!" Dr. Blowhole high-fived her and then drew back his flipper in pain as her huge clumsy one hit his smaller one. "Ugh. Pleasure to have you back in business, Rhonda. – Now, let's get ready to conquer this place!"

"Suit yourself, Blowhole," Skipper muttered, and the rest of the group, too, was obviously disinterested in hindering him from doing so in any way. Even Rhonda wasn't convinced.

"Not sure this is a good idea, Doc," she warned.

Dr. Blowhole could only frown uncomprehendingly at these reactions. "Oh, but what is wrong with all of you? – Where's your spirit, Rhonda? We have a whole zoo at our flippers, waiting to be conquered; the next step on the ladder of our evil career is right in front of us, and there are no bounds! – Where's your desire to fight, Skipper? Where's the fun in pioneering new ways to unfold evil if you penguins don't even try to stop me! Why on Earth do you all look so _miserable?!_ "

Skipper just shook his head.

"Believe me, any other place would be worth fighting for, but not this one. You can't possibly bring any more evil into existence here than has already been caused by those humans. The animals around here truly have suffered enough, shed enough tears because of the humans' tortures. It would've been better for all of us if we had never set foot in this place at all."

"Oh, but I love aberrations and unforeseen complications…"

"But not to _this_ extent," Skipper replied wearily, "You sure as hell can be glad you've never been a 'patient' in the Alchimus Hospital."

Blowhole's good eye started to circle the environment. "Oh, really? You know I've been in Seaville. That cesspool makes Hoboken look like the French Riviera! …I guess." – Just then he noticed his lost lobster minion, who was now keeping a cloth tied over both his empty eyes. – "Red Two! There you are! What happened to you?!"

"Skipper is right, Doctor," the lobster said, "Please listen to him this one time; he knows what he's talking about, and without him, I wouldn't be alive now. There's nothing about this place we could even remotely appreciate, and no one who hasn't been here can ever even begin to imagine what we Hoboken Zoo residents have gone through…"

And he lifted one of his pincers and removed the cloth, revealing his empty, swollen eye sockets and the long, jagged scars that travelled all the way down his telescope eyes, the skin on the edges of these wide scars all black and deadened. "Only humans can create a place so filled with evil," he calmly said, "But you, you wouldn't want to do harm like this to others, would you, Doctor."

At these words Dr. Blowhole fell very silent. He held the eyeless gaze; of all those assembled, he was the one who knew best what this kind of pain felt like. After all, he'd experienced it himself, if only with his right eye. On looking at Red Two now, a mixture of rage and decades of deep hurt flared in his remaining good eye. That one fateful day in the marine park on Coney Island the humans had made him feel the same pain, the same shame, the same humiliation… it stabbed inside him, slicing all the way up, and for a moment he turned his face away.

When he was looking at the wreckage of the smashed building again it was only then that he seemed to recognize the place in all its awfulness. Everything the Alchimus Hospital had ever reflected was nothing more than overwhelming sorrow and despair; even now that it was destroyed, the moaning and crying of the tortured animals still seemed to echo from these crushed walls, the agonizing pain still flowing around and clinging to them, radiating from them, assaulting everyone who only dared as much as come too close to them.

"I believe you're right," said Dr. Blowhole as he was facing the penguins again. Looking at Skipper, he added, "What do you say we, uh…"

"…skip the fight this time?" Skipper nodded. "Gladly." – Secretly, he thought that seeing Red Two like this must've affected Blowhole even more deeply than he'd guessed; he hadn't expected to ever hear from his arch-foe that he was correct about something.

Dr. Blowhole nodded. "There's nothing here worth fighting for. My evil genius can't unfold in a place which is already filled to overflowing by someone else's evil. I'll find a better place for my new secret lair… but at least I've got the chance to gain a bunch of new employees here! I bet those poor unfortunate souls who have just lost their zoo are happy to get a new home…" – He rode his scooter towards the assembled crowd of ex-Hoboken Zoo residents. "Hey, who of you guys wants to work for me?! You'll get two days off per week, free Wi-Fi, and parties each weekend!" – At his words a slight murmur rose from the gathered mass of animals. Finally Barry raised a blue finger.

"I'll go with him," he declared, "I have nowhere else to go anyway, now that our zoo is destroyed."

"Me, too," Parker grumbled, "But make sure you pay me enough this time. A flipper full of gift cards just won't cut it!"

"Then I'll go, too," another voice called from the crowd, and more and more animals joined them.

"Hold on! How dare you!" Savio angrily hissed, "You've got to work for _me_ , all of you!"

Dr. Blowhole gave him a smirk.

"And what do you have to offer, slimy snake? How do you ever plan on paying anyone – now that you don't possess anything yourself, now that you don't even have a habitat anymore?"

The ex-king of Hoboken menacingly hissed at Blowhole but couldn't do anything but watch as more and more of his former subjects began boarding the rocket ship.

"Wait, where are Hans and Lulu?" Barry asked.

"As soon as the hospital had come down, they ran off to catch the next flight to Denmark," Parker explained.

"Oh, I thought Hans was banned from this country…?"

"Believe me, they'll find a way."

Soon all the former residents of the Hoboken Zoo had gathered aboard Dr. Blowhole's ship and began making themselves known to their new colleagues, the lobster minions.

Staying back outside alone, Savio glared at them with furious eyes.

"This isn't the end!" he swore, and then turned to proudly undulate off.

"Wait!" Skipper called after him, "Before you go – tell us, do you know that one thing we're all dying to know?" – Savio gave him a quizzical frown. – "What was it that Charlie hoped to find, the one thing the Hoboken Zoo residents were suffering for all along? What was he trying to achieve with his cruel experiments... What did he want?"

Savio rolled his eyes. "Ph! What every human is looking for, of course."

"Finding remedies for yet incurable diseases?" Kowalski guessed.

"I said _every_ human, not every doctor. – Come on, what is it that every human wants?"

"Power?" said Skipper.

"Parties?" said Julien.

"Eternal love?" said Private.

Savio snorted. _"¡Qué chorrada!_ Nonsense! You're all so naïve. It's _gold,_ of course. Fabulous, endless wealth… and a bit of fame, too, once he would've published his spectacular result."

Skipper and his team exchanged confused glances. "Which… would've been what exactly?"

"The animal with the 'golden touch', of course. Charlie was looking for that one animal which he believed would be able to turn everything he wanted into gold for him with a mere touch. He was firmly convinced that although externally yet invisible, this ability was hidden somewhere in the fauna, and if he only experienced on us long enough, he'd find a way to present evidence for this ability and make it emerge eventually. The Alchimus Hospital, which he presented to the public as a building for animal care was in fact nothing but a perfect cover for his medical intrigues."

"And that's… that's it?" Private asked, visibly shocked. "That's everything the animals here in the Hoboken Zoo have endured those cruel tortures for – a mere _theory?!_ "

Savio just shrugged. "Vivisection is a popular form of scientific research."

"But why would he even support a theory as inconceivably absurd as this?!" Kowalski asked, "There's no such thing as scientific evidence for a 'golden gene' in animals at all! What gave him that idea in the first place? Rather than any sober scientific statement, this whole thing sounds more like a complete _myth_ to me, or… I don't know, something some joker made up, for Newton knows what reason!"

"That sure turned into some macabre joke," Skipper muttered.

"Well, he personally thought it so spectacularly bizarre that he believed no one could have had that much imagination. Sure, the theory had been neglected by his human colleagues for several reasons, but he was firmly convinced that it was up to him to demonstrate that these reasons were unacceptable." Savio smirked. "You see, some people just lose their heads and forget about virtue and everything else if they face the prospect of becoming rich."

"Look who's talking," Maurice whispered to Skipper.

"Apparently not many other humans would take him seriously, though; that's why he was arrested for a while on the charge of animal abuse when he failed to verify that all his experiments actually contributed to the advancement of scientific knowledge," Savio continued, "But obviously they weren't smart enough to see through the whole thing; that's why he could come back. After that he was more careful… but even crueler, too, because he knew it wouldn't be too long until he'd get busted again and then very likely be permanently suspended from his job as a zookeeper. That's why he wanted to get as many experiments done in as little time as possible." – He looked around the place. – "Where is he now actually? He didn't make it, did he?"

Skipper shook his head. "He faced justice for what he did when the hospital went up in flames."

"That's a pity." Savio's piercing golden eyes stared dispassionately back into theirs when they looked at him, wondering if they had heard properly. "Really, he was a great guy. If I were a human and had the same means he had, I would've done things like he did them."

"But you just told us yourself about how people lost their heads about the prospect of becoming rich...," Private reminded him.

"I just stated a fact. I never said this was a bad thing; personally, I don't think it is."

"Yeah, of course you don't!" Parker muttered, "After you shamelessly enriched yourself all along at our expense by selling us that grossly overpriced pink trash which was supposed to protect us but then ever so often was of no use at all!"

"You're just jealous because this was my idea and not yours," Savio hissed back at him, exposing his forked tongue and long fangs that almost seemed to gleam. "Don't tell me that if _you_ had been the one who ruled this zoo, you wouldn't have done it that way."

"No offense, Sir, but you must be completely out of your mind," Dr. Blowhole interfered, addressing Savio.

"Oh, really? At least I'm still well capable of judging with whom it's worth working and with whom it isn't. I'm obviously wasting my time here talking to the likes of you, _señores_. My evil plans may be foiled for now, but you, penguins, certainly haven't seen the last of me! So, until we meet again… ciao."

And with these words he just turned away and slithered off, carefully tunneling his way through the dust and broken pieces of stone littering the ground.


	23. Chapter 22 - Settling Scores

CHAPTER 22

 **SETTLING SCORES**

The other animals stared after him in silence. Then Rico made a disgruntled sound. Skipper nodded his agreement.

"Yeah, right. What a psycho! We can be glad we've gotten rid of him… at least for now." – Then he felt Dr. Blowhole's flipper poke his shoulder lightly; but when he looked up at him, for once the doctor seemed at a loss for words.

"You, uh… You saved one of mine," he explained at last, "Red Two said he owed you his life. He's your foe; that means you could've chosen to let him die. But you didn't."

Skipper waved him off. "Well… yeah. Never mind."

"In fact I do mind. Next time we meet for a fight, I don't want to owe you anything. That means I, uh… basically it means, I'd like to return the favor somehow. So, is there anything I can help you with?"

"Actually, there is," Kowalski interfered before his leader could answer, "You know, we were on our way to Madagascar when we crash-landed in this zoo with our helicopter. With all the admirable high-tech gadgets which you're able to create with such considerable ease, perhaps you could lend us a helping flipper and fix it in a way we can make the long journey?" – He pointed towards the storeroom, which had luckily remained untouched by the fire. – "It's in that little room over there behind the Zoovenir shop."

Dr. Blowhole nodded. "I see. That shouldn't be a problem. – Red Three, Red Four, Red Twenty-Seven," he called back over his shoulder, "Take all necessary equipment out to that storeroom over there and fix the aircraft inside." – Three lobsters came scurried down the ramp right away in order to follow his command.

"Now let's see if a bunch of small lobsters can repair what we couldn't," Kowalski disparagingly whispered to his leader. However, barely ten minutes later they heard the distinctive sound of a helicopter's rotors, their noisy beat and whirr, and a moment later, they saw their helicopter rise from behind the storeroom. They felt the turbulence of the rotor as it approached them overhead; then it began to settle toward the earth, and they stepped aside so it could land right between them.

"Mission accomplished, Dr. Blowhole." The three lobsters got out, saluted, and moved back into the rocket ship.

Kowalski stared at the helicopter, beak wide agape, until Skipper gave him a nudge with the flipper. "Thank you," he said to his dolphin nemesis – for the very first time since they had met.

Dr. Blowhole shook his head. "Just repaying the favor. You let me return home with all my men, so I'll help you return with all of yours. – Get ready for takeoff," he yelled to his lobster minions, who started the engines, "Soon as you guys are ready, we're out of here!" – Then he bowed down to shake flippers with the penguin leader. – "We may part in peace now, but next time we meet, we'll resume the fight, and when that moment arrives I'll have another jaw-dropping, dangerously mad project of mine ready for you with which I'll definitely have the last laugh at you, _pen-gyu-ins!_ "

"I wouldn't bet on it, Blowhole," Skipper replied with a challenging smile.

Then Dr. Blowhole retreated inside the rocket ship, and Skipper was about to tell his own group to board the helicopter when he saw Clemson was still kneeling on the ground, holding the android's body on his lap. "Move it, lemur. Your new evil boss is waiting."

Clemson had fallen very silent. Hesitating, he lifted his gaze and stared up at Skipper through hazy eyes. Then he slightly shook his head. "I won't join him," he answered quietly, just a hint of a crack in his voice. Skipper raised his eyebrows.

"What do you mean, you won't join him? If you don't go with Blowhole, where else do you want to go?"

Clemson lowered his eyes again and said nothing.

Dr. Blowhole impatiently honked the horn of his rocket ship and yelled through the rolled down window of the pilot's cabin, "Is that lemur coming now or not?!"

Skipper signaled him to wait a little longer. "Why don't you want to go with him?" he asked Clemson.

The red lemur shook his head again, biting his bottom lip so hard he drew blood. "I… I can't," he murmured. His paws were shaking hard now. "I… I just can't do this anymore. If I join Dr. Blowhole now and make more evil plans, it'll always make me think of how… how this one ended."

He ran his fingers over the contours of Mea's face and gently brushed singed curls of fur from his cheeks. Then he looked at Skipper again as if he wanted to say more, but suddenly words seemed to fail him. He swallowed hard as his eyes misted with tears of loss and grief he couldn't hold back. Hastily he scrubbed them from his face with the palms of his paws, but they kept coming as he struggled to continue, "I'll… I'll think of him and… and remember… that it was me who killed him."

And then he fell apart; his face frighteningly pale, he began crying without restraint.

"I don't want to do this anymore! I don't want any more evil people in my life, and I don't want to be one of them myself anymore; I don't need any more destruction in the world! After all the evil I inflicted upon others myself, I don't think my mind considered that one day it could turn back on me, but somewhere in my soul I must've always known it. And still I chose to ignore it and went on with my evil schemes – 'Who cares! I'm evil!' I used to say so frivolously, so foolishly thoughtless! – Well, I guess you never care, not until something goes wrong, so wrong you can't turn things back to what they were. You lose something you'll never get back… and then you feel something gets torn apart inside you that can't be made whole again."

He cried like they'd never seen him cry before, as if something profound had broken loose in his heart. He wailed against the injustice, against Charlie, against his fate. This time he had nowhere to run, nowhere to escape. The little group gathered around him, and he cowered before them, his lies all exposed and useless, his deceptions, his malice, his egotism. There was no more hope for him, no hope, only the terrible loss that dragged so painfully at his heart, and the sadness about it that seemed to shake him to his very core.

"Oh Sky Spirits, take away the pain," he breathed, "Only now I see that by being so evil I've made a mistake that can never be forgiven, that will never be forgotten, that will stay inside me like an open wound."

He lifted his tearful face to look at the others again. His voice soaked with anguish, he swore, "I'd rather die than join Dr. Blowhole and ever do one single evil deed more in my life!"

More tears streamed down his face, and he clasped his paws together as if in prayer.

"Please forgive me," he said, "I know I don't have any right to ask this from you and I know I don't deserve it in any way, but I beg you, for the love of all the Sky Spirits… Don't leave me back here alone. Take me with you to Madagascar. I promise I'll be good, I promise with all I have left. I have nowhere else to go and I have no means to get away from here either, and I'm so terribly, terribly scared that these humans will catch me again. You can lock me up, punish me in any way you think fit; I'm at your mercy. Just… please don't let me fall into the hands of those humans. Please… Please don't leave me back here on my own!"

"That is ridiculous! Who do you think you are?!" Before he could say a word more, Clover's paw hit him hard across his teary face. "For all the atrocities you've committed, all the things you've done to King Julien, you deserve ten times what Charlie has done to you!"

Her eyes slitted with fury, she grabbed a fistful of his red hair, pulling until he was jerked to his knees, tears running down his cheeks, his mouth twisted with pain. She tore at his hair again, adding, "And don't even _think_ you could soften anyone up by acting like a sappy fool now." She hit him again, using all her strength so that the blow cracked on the bone, and he whimpered, drawing his legs up and curling into a protective ball, sobbing and pleading for her to stop until Skipper told her that it was enough. Then she flung him back down with all her force, hissing, "That skygoddamn traitor better gets out of my sight once and for all before I beat him to the ground and crush him with my feet!"

Clemson lay where he had fallen, looking dazed, bruised, and sick.

"How can you be so cruel!" Private said to Clover, throwing his flippers up in horror, "Clemson is just trying to apologize! Don't you think you should give him a chance?"

"Yes, maybe," Kowalski agreed. "For once he seems honest after all."

"Nuh-uh!" Rico, on the other hand, firmly shook his head, and Mort, too, joined him in doing so.

"Give him a chance?" Clover snorted, "He's blown all his chances long ago. I couldn't have even forgiven him the first time, but this time he really stepped over the line of no return. It's over! Now I just want to see him suffer… Hell, I hate him enough to want to see him dead! And before you sue me for thinking like this, you better ask your skipper to finally tell you the truth about his crimes, you naïve cadet!" – That silenced Private, and now, of course, he was looking at his leader.

"It's, uh… not up to me to make this decision," Skipper answered evasively and then looked at Julien, "In fact, that decision is yours, Ringtail. You're the lemur king; you'll know best how to sentence a terrorist lemur. Whether we take Clemson along to Madagascar or not is your choice."

Julien's eyes flickered over to Maurice, and his advisor nodded encouragingly at him. Hesitating, he took a step towards Clemson. "Well, I…"

"Don't do it, King Julien," Mort begged him, lightly touching one of the king's feet in order to get his attention. Julien swept him away reflexively. He was about to start declaring something when suddenly, with a mighty roar, the main engines of the rocket ship exploded into life right next to them. Dr. Blowhole was obviously tired of waiting and had decided to leave after all. Shuddering under the sudden surge of power, the ship rose from the ground, accelerated, and then arrowed right into the sky.

Clover sighed. "There goes our chance to get rid of the traitor in such a simple way," she muttered. Skipper and Kowalski looked at each other.

"No matter _how_ you decide to handle this, those humans aren't stupid," Kowalski said, "We have to get away from here as soon as possible, so please make your decision quickly."

Julien looked down on the lemur who had tortured him so, who had even threatened to take his life, and those of the ones closest to him. Clemson seemed so helpless and broken now, as though a deep shock had shattered his entire being. He looked so pale, so weak Julien almost couldn't believe this was the same lemur who had raped him again last night, the same lemur who had threatened him with deadly armies and zoo domination plans. Julien had no idea what to say to him, how to deal with him now. All he knew was that for the first time in a long while he wasn't afraid of being face to face with him.

"This, uh… is a private lemur issue, which I therefore need to be discussing with my commoners alone before I can be comfortable announcing my decision," he heard himself say.

Skipper nodded. "Okay, but hurry."

"I think I've already made my point clear," Clover declared, so the remaining lemurs huddled in a group of three.

"I vote _no_ ," Mort whispered decidedly as soon as they were sure no one was listening.

Julien nodded, feeling scared all of a sudden. "I agree. If I give Clemson the chance to be anywhere close to me, he'll start this all over again…"

Maurice nodded, deep concern shadowing his eyes.

"Start what?" the little mouse lemur asked.

"Mort, you've made your vote," Julien declared, "It is noted. You can go now."

"Okay." He left, and the two older lemurs were on their own.

Julien gazed at his advisor, unable to hide his anxiousness, and then took Maurice's paw in both of his. "Oh, Momo, what do we do now…?"

Maurice stood silent and thoughtful for a while, his fingers threading with Julien's. His thumb stroked the back of his king's paw when he looked at him again with sorrow-filled eyes. "I'm with you, of course. I couldn't imagine anything worse than having Clemson around on Madagascar, causing havoc on the island and shattering the peace of our people. But then again, if we say we leave him here, it means we potentially sentence him to death…" – He cast a look back over his shoulder at the red lemur. – "He doesn't exactly look like he's capable of fleeing from the humans right now. In fact, he doesn't look like he's going to last much longer anyway."

Julien clenched his paws into fists. "Why couldn't he just go with Dr. Blowhole? – Or, even better, why didn't he just burn in the flames in that hospital!" he exclaimed, a sudden flood of hate against Clemson surging up in his heart again, but then he relented. "– No, you're right, Maurice. If I decline now, I look like a bad lemur king."

The older lemur's eyebrows shot up. "I didn't say that! After all he's done to you, you can very well pass this sentence upon him without being considered a bad king in any way!"

But Julien shook his head. "What kind of lemur king would be sentencing another lemur to death!" – He, too, looked back at Clemson again and watched him caress Mea's lifeless body for a while. – "You know, maybe losing his robot friend really has changed him, and now he's ready to become a good lemur after all. Just look how lost he is now; he has nowhere to go, no place to call home, no one to take care of him. And then he said he didn't want to be evil anymore…"

Maurice's eyes narrowed. "Don't tell me you believe that!"

"But why not? Sometimes you have to break a heart to open it…"

The older lemur grabbed hold of his king's shoulders a little more firmly than he'd wanted to. "Don't be naïve, Julien! If you start being nice to him now, you'll only end up as his victim again sooner or later!" – That scared the king so much his face went all white, and Maurice quickly added, "Listen, maybe there's a different solution. What if we agree to take Clemson to Madagascar, but once we're there, we just take him where we take our prisoners?"

"You mean, to charity work? Fixing the trees and cleaning the water holes? Well, he would still be awfully close to the pack, wouldn't he?"

"No, not to charity work. I mean where the _really bad_ prisoners go. Those whose punishment is to do the most dangerous job of all, the job no other lemur in the pack ever wants or deserves to do: supervising the Fossa Territory. That way Clemson would get a chance to stay alive, and you would have forever earned yourself a reputation as a really noble and generous king who even cares about the life of one of the worst of all lemurs. But at the same time it'd keep him as far away from everyone else as possible, so he wouldn't get the chance to commit any more crimes, and if we lose him to the fossa, no damage is done."

Julien thought about this for a little while. Then he nodded. "Yes, let's go with that."

They joined the others again. Julien took a deep breath and stepped towards Clemson, although not without making sure that Maurice was following closely behind him.

"Clemson, as your king I declare…"

"Please don't, King Julien," Mort interrupted him, his eyes wide with fear, "Please don't let him."

"Mort, you shut up when I'm talking! – Now, everybody, as the King of Madagascar I hereby declare…"

Mort tugged the penguin leader's flipper. "Tell him not to allow Clemson to come with us," he whispered feverishly. Skipper patted his head but didn't say anything.

"…that you are allowed to join the journey to our home. As a prisoner, of course."

"That means once we're there, we'll arrest him and have him fed to the fossa, right?" Clover asked eagerly.

"Well… not exactly. But we _will_ send him out to guard the Fossa Territory, where he can, uh… try to survive for at least a little while, I think."

Clemson's only reply was an apathetic nod. His face was unreadable, a granite mask. His eyes sweeping over Julien reflected nothing but indifference; to a sentence like this only a lemur who was very tired of life or who was born in captivity and had never faced a real fossa could show such indifference.

Clover gave her king a look saying, 'not quite the decision I would have made, but I'm okay with it'. Mort, however, didn't agree at all. "No," he whispered and then wailed out loudly, "No, no, no!" His big sad eyes flickered and then turned wet. "Don't let him come to Madagascar! Don't let him come to Madagascar! Please… he's so evil!"

"We'll be alright," Clover said to him, exchanging a confused glance with Maurice; they both wondered why he would react like this when they hadn't even told him a thing about what Clemson had really done to their king. But Mort only hid behind her leg, curled himself up in a tiny brown ball of fur, and started to weep softly. "I'm scared."

But no one took the time to listen to him. The penguins urged them to get on board the helicopter, telling them they had to leave quickly now. A party of firemen was combing the area nearby, their searchlights moving back and forth like pointing fingers, and they all knew that if the humans detected them, they would have great difficulties getting away.

Skipper and Rico helped Clemson lift Mea's body on a seat in the very last row, next to the window, while the rest of the lemurs stayed in the front row. Although it was damaged, Clemson wanted to take along the motorbike as well, and since the back part of the helicopter was crowded with luggage, they stored it behind the pilot seat in the cockpit.

Private slammed the doors behind them shut while Kowalski was already starting the engines. They were running as fine again as the first time they'd taken off back in New York.

The rotors noisily beat the air overhead, and then they lifted off into a sky that was slowly clearing back to blue.

* * *

Trying to ignore the joyful laughter and happy voices, Clemson had wrapped his arms around himself and turned away from all of them. He concentrated on staring out through the window and watched the scenery flow by several thousand feet below. White cloud banks were passing over it.

He desperately wanted to be alone, now that they'd been confined to such a small space together, and he was surrounded by nothing but enemies. When he watched them laugh and amuse themselves together he became so angry he felt sick. The helplessness that rose inside him when he looked at Mea was like a tide of red fury. The android had been his only true ally when it came to facing the terrors of Hoboken, the only soul who had ever meant anything to him – but of course they didn't care. He wanted to scream at them with the rage filling him.

And, as if he hadn't endured enough already, Julien – that filthy, selfish, careless bastard! – had even had the nerve to sentence him to some crude form of life imprisonment as soon as they would land on Madagascar. He wanted to punch him until he had no more energy, to mangle his cheerful, smiling face, to slowly dig a razor-sharp blade into the flesh of his neck, to feel his pulse die under his fingers.

– How he hated him, hated them all! They had the power to restore Mea, to give him back what he longed for most of all – but of course they wouldn't do it.

Because they knew how to hurt him. How to make him suffer.

He wrapped his arms around Mea's lifeless body and cradled him and stroked his hair. But there wasn't a vital spark left inside him – he was like a mere statue now, so pale and cold and still! He was gone, never to return. Now they would never march into the Central Park Zoo side by side, along with a whole army of androids to back them up, like he'd always dreamed they would. His mischievous smile would never touch Clemson's heart again, his electric laughter never again fill his day. And never, never would he touch him again… The ache in his throat threatened to choke him, and then he broke down into silent sobs again. He curled up behind his tail and hid his face against the android's stiff shoulder. Mea's fur muffled his sobs, drank up his tears. The thought of having lost him forever filled his heart with cold, bleak agony.

He slipped one arm around the android's waist and edged his hips up to a few inches away from Mea's, tucking himself in close to his side. Slowly his fingers began trailing down Mea's chest, his flank… until they moved over the black butt of a gun sticking up from the holster at his hip. Clemson blinked his eyes in surprise. He thumbed the snap on the holster. The slither of the gun against leather sounded strangely loud in his ears. He turned it around, studying it from all angles, turmoil spinning in his mind all of a sudden. Mea still had his gun. Clemson remembered how Hans had told him to give it to him when they'd returned to the zoo and was sure he had done so, but just then the humans had arrived to take them away. In fact Mea must have kept it all along. _He still had his gun._

Clemson's paws began to tremble as the impact of that realization hit him. He gripped his shaky fingers around the butt. It felt cool on his fur, hard and deadly. He lifted the pistol slowly, letting it lay on his open palm, his gaze riveted on the blue-cast barrel. By its weight he could tell it was loaded. Little by little, his shoulders stopped shaking and his breathing slowed. The heavy weight of the weapon felt reassuring in his paw, so reassuring…

In the front row the New Yorkers sat side by side, laughing and sharing popcorn, not paying him any attention. Clemson smiled through the last of his tears before he wiped them away. When he got up he felt as if a crushing weight had been lifted from him, and for the first time in a long while he felt something he'd never thought to feel again: hope.

* * *

The flight went smooth and calmly.

Thanks to Dr. Blowhole, all systems of the helicopter were up and running again, and they'd been airborne for several hours without interruption. Only Kowalski was in the cockpit now; the other penguins had joined the lemurs in the passenger section. Skipper and Maurice were deeply involved in a game of chess. Next to them Rico was trying to solve Sudoku puzzles, and Private was constantly taking pictures of the sky outside. Clover was continuing her fan fiction about the warrior lemur Thysander Plunderhorse and his love interest, Norj Grendelfist. They were going to meet new enemies in the next chapter she started to draw: human-like monsters wearing bloody medical scrubs littered the following pages. Mort had calmed down and played his Gameboy for hours on end before he got into a dispute with Julien over the last bag of popcorn. When Julien won, he sulkily trotted off and went into the cockpit instead to pelt Kowalski with annoying questions about how to fly a helicopter. So far, the entire trip had been peaceful and enjoyable. They were glad, absurdly and splendidly glad that it was all over; they were sharing each other's happiness about simply being alive, about leaving the shadows of Hoboken behind once and for all, and the four lemurs especially relished the joy of finally, finally heading home.

Every once in a while Skipper cast a look over his shoulder at Clemson, who was still sitting in the back of the helicopter, but he hadn't seen him do anything suspicious. He looked again when he heard him get up from his seat and, with surprise, watched him lift the lifeless android up and over his shoulder. For the first time during the journey the red lemur came ahead to speak to them.

"I'm sorry, but he just takes up too much space back there," he explained, "I really need to take a rest, so I'd like to take him to the cockpit. It's wider; there's more room there than around here, so I hope it's okay if he stays there for the rest of the journey."

The rest of the group looked at each other. The back of the helicopter was indeed clogged with their luggage, and they weren't exactly sad to have the dangerous machine put out of sight for a while, so they just nodded for him to go on.

For a moment, Skipper wondered if it wasn't strange that he asked for this; after all, he'd watched Clemson cry for the past few hours, and the android's loss seemed to have saddened him beyond belief – and now he was ready to take him away like this!

But then he had already disappeared inside the cockpit, and the others didn't seem to worry too much about it either, and maybe it was just his way of dealing with this, the same callous and uncaring way he behaved in towards everyone else.

"I'll have you checkmated with your next move," Maurice said to Skipper, drawing his attention back to the game board.

* * *

Kowalski heard the cockpit door behind him slide open.

"Mort, I told you I'm busy," he moaned, thinking it was the little mouse lemur, who had come to see him every five minutes within the past hour. "I also told you explicitly and repeatedly: _I will not allow you to fly this helicopter,_ not even for a second! Why don't you go pester the other lemurs for a while?!"

The doors slid closed again with a thud, sealing him inside the cockpit with the unwanted intruder.

"Freeze," said a voice from behind him that wasn't Mort's.


	24. Chapter 23 - Long Way Home

CHAPTER 23

 **LONG WAY HOME**

Kowalski felt his heart begin to race. Even though every inch of him screamed he should keep his flippers on the steering levers, he raised them and then slowly turned around. His eyes widened in stunned shock – Clemson stood behind him, his gun drawn and pointed right at him. "For the love of Isaac Newton, make it quick."

Clemson lowered the weapon. "Killing you is not my intention," he said calmly.

Kowalski watched him put Mea's body on the floor between them. "I guess I know what you came for."

"Fine." Clemson stared down at the gun in his paws. "You know what to do then."

"This is getting a bit ridiculous, don't you think? How often have we been doing this lately? If you need this machine so badly, then why don't you see to it that it doesn't keep breaking down so often?" – Clemson didn't answer. Instead, he lifted the gun again, pointed it right at the penguin's head, and cocked it. Although the sound of metal meeting metal was very soft, Kowalski froze, his blood turning cold within his veins. He recoiled with a shudder, putting his flippers up again in defense. – "Alright, alright." He went to look for his toolbox and finally pulled it up from under the dashboard. "Seriously, do you think one day you and your android boyfriend are going to rule the world? Wrong. Maybe _he_ and the likes of him, a bunch of other AIs, might take over animalhood and get to rule the world eventually, but by that time he'll have gotten rid of you for long."

The red lemur shook his head. "You're not fooling me anymore."

Kowalski was silent for a moment before he asked, "What if I say no?"

"Then I'll shoot you dead, throw your body out of the window, jump right after you with the only parachute aboard, and leave your friends in here to crash down to earth without a pilot. Unlike you, I have nothing to lose."

Kowalski frowned. What choice did he have? From the look on the red lemur's face he could tell that Clemson couldn't have been more serious. With a sigh he bowed down over the android's body and got to work. "You know, you should be glad it ended up that way. You saw it yourself: the first time he turned on you, he almost killed you. He won't go so easy on you next time."

Clemson held his paw up to ward off his words. "I'm not going to fall for this again."

"I know it might be hard to understand at the point you're now. But believe me, with Jiggles I went through exactly the same. In the end you'll see that it's better that way. It's healthier not to be that kind of mad scientist… And I don't only mean it's the best thing for those around you. It is also the healthiest thing for _you_."

"I said I'm not going to fall for it!" The red lemur's voice was trembling with rage. He paused and then added in a lower tone, "Mea is never going to turn on me again."

Kowalski loosened the nuts and bolts securing the steel plates around Mea's CPU. "Oh mama, that looks bad," he commented when he realized the full extent of the damage Charlie's machine had caused inside the android. "No offense, but maybe you should let go. You're his maker. His existence ought to depend on you, not the other way round."

He looked up at Clemson for a second before he removed the entire engine compartment along with the damaged battery. "Look at that: completely burned out. You couldn't even run a particle destabilizer with it! And even if I manage to divert the energy flow, it just might not last too long, and then what will you do? The materials he's made of have become brittle from being damaged so many times, and sooner or later any machine can get damaged beyond repair, you know."

Clemson was very silent for a while. "Just shut up and make him work again," he coldly replied then, "All that wouldn't have happened if you son of a bitch hadn't put that resistor inside his heart to constantly weaken him! You will remove it now right away! And once he's able to use his full power again, I bet that burned out battery will be half bad."

"Alright, I'll do what you say. But even if I manage to repair him for now and reset his performance back to hundred per cent, this will change nothing about the bad condition of his hardware. One heavy downpour might be enough, and then your great invention is history!" Kowalski obediently continued his work; however, out of the corner of his eye he didn't fail to notice that Clemson's paw holding the weapon was trembling slightly.

For the next half an hour Kowalski tried everything possible to make Mea work again. He fixed whatever could still be fixed and only removed wires and other parts that were completely burned and used all his creativity to replace them with different, less fitting parts, or to find a way to make things run without them. When he cut into some parts of the artificial skin to reach the bodywork below, Clemson turned his head away. It cost him a great deal in effort and intense concentration to finish the delicate work around the energy core, but finally he refitted the steel plates and tightened the nuts. Then the red lemur handed him an old 3.5-inch recovery disk, and he inserted it into Mea's auxiliary drive. Clemson was visibly shaking with excitement as he did so.

He had done good work: the android booted up on the first try.

For a moment his eyes were filled with nothing but navy blue, and the half-choked words he uttered were all in binary, but then the red lights inside his eyes flashed up again; he moaned sorely, and all his recovery programs were immediately beginning to run.

"Mea!" Clemson dropped to his knees beside him and bowed over him. "Mea, are you alright?" – He took the android's face in his paws and combed through his singed hair with his fingers. The red lights of his eyes were flickering, unsteady, and dim. – "Do you remember me?"

The android blinked his eyes a few times as if trying to call up forgotten data, but then his lips twisted into a faint smile. "How could I not remember my maker? – But what is this? Did you see that blue light like I did…? Are you destroyed, too – are you in Android Heaven with me?"

"Oh, Mea…!" Clemson's shaking paws gripped the android's and squeezed it. He seemed overwhelmed by a wave of rare, true emotion… distracted! Kowalski immediately tried to use the chance. The gun lay next to Clemson on the floor quite forgotten – he reached out his flipper, but before he could grab it, the android's free paw fell over it and grasped it tight.

"Oh no, you don't!" Mea's voice was rough but steady.

"You bastard!" Clemson took the gun up from under the android's paw and pointed it between Kowalski's eyes, making the tall penguin blanch under his feathers. "I should kill you for this and I would, if I didn't need you for a few more things. – First, you'll help me repair that as well." – He jerked his head towards the motorbike that was stored in the back half of the cockpit, leaning there on its kickstand. – "Then you'll land that helicopter and tell the others…"

* * *

 _"…unfortunately we're experiencing a minor technical difficulty. Please remain seated. We will resume our flight in a minute."_

The group of passengers fell silent when Kowalski's announcement blared over the PA system of the helicopter. Then Skipper moaned.

"Not quite the brilliant technical genius after all, are you, Blowhole!"

Rotors slapping, the helicopter slowly lowered down towards the ground. They all turned their heads to glance out through the windows. They had reached the other continent in the meantime; now they were stuck somewhere in Morocco. The landscape outside was nothing but one giant sandy desert, with the exception of a few rocky hills composed of volcanic substances. Then they heard the cockpit door of the helicopter open.

"Gee, let's hope Kowalski _can_ fix whatever is wrong again now because we sure as hell won't find a breakdown service out here!" Private said.

Clover unfastened her seatbelt. "Shouldn't we get out and help him?"

Skipper shook his head. "No, let's wait a little first. He told us to remain seated."

"I'm travel-sick," Mort interrupted, "I feel queasy!"

"Then stop staring into that tiny Gameboy screen and look out the window instead!" Maurice muttered. Reluctantly, the little mouse lemur put the console down and turned towards his window. "But that's boring! There's nothing there. Just sky and clouds and sand and… oh, and two bikers. They both look like Clemson."

 _"What?!"_

Now they all hurried over to Mort's window, from where they heard the loud roar of a motorcycle engine being revved. They peered out with wide eyes and gasped when a moment later Clemson pulled up outside on his red motorbike; he beckoned Mea, who was apparently fully operational again and just descending the pull-down stairs out of the cockpit, to climb up behind him.

"Hoover Dam!" Skipper cursed; he jumped up and headed towards the cockpit where he slammed his fist against the closed door.

"Kowalski! Open up!" – No answer. – _"Kowalski!"_ He banged on the door again. This time there was a small whimper behind it. "Rico, hurry up and get that door open –!"

In an instant the rogue penguin was by his side, a crowbar held tightly in his grip; grabbing it with both flippers he slowly prized the door open. The scene behind it edged its way from left to right at a snail's pace. The tall penguin lay sprawled on the floor behind the pilot seat, moaning and drowsy eyes blinking, trying to focus on them. Blood was seeping from a big gash at his temple to pool in a puddle beneath his head. Tools and loose, burned wires lay spread around him. His brothers darted to his side to help him sit up, and he held on to them, semiconscious, and stammered something about what Clemson had forced him to do and how, as soon as the helicopter had touched the ground, the restored android had knocked him down, and then both lemurs had escaped.

The cockpit door was still wide open. Hot wind blew in, along with a generous spray of sand. Skipper and Clover were the first ones to leap outside, the others following them closely –

But they were too late.

They arrived to watch them thunder off on their motorbike, sand whirling up from under the wheels, leaving the rest of the group behind in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes.

 _"Curse you!"_ Clover yelled at the top of her lungs, shaking her fists after them, _"Curse you, Clemson!"_ But only the hot wind took her voice and hurled it away, turning it into a shrill sound in the howling cacophony. Moments later the sandstorm had swallowed the two red lemurs on their bike; they just disappeared between the dunes like an eerie fata morgana.

Skipper stared after them, blinking against the whirling sand stinging his face.

Somehow Clemson was a riddle to him. There he went, and they couldn't do anything to stop him. Once more he had managed to trick them all. They'd been taken in by his lies when he'd told them how he wanted to change and become a good lemur. In fact, he'd been lying to them all along, broken their deals, even tried to get rid of them – but then Skipper remembered how Mea's loss seemed to have so genuinely tormented his heart, and he was convinced that he would still grieve deeply over it now had he not gotten the chance to force Kowalski to revive the android. He also remembered how Clemson had embraced him in the fire, how he'd had to encourage him to fight for his own life, and how he had asked him to help him survive…

All along Skipper had been asking himself if it had been right to risk so much for him, and he couldn't make up his mind whether or not he regretted having saved Clemson's life, not even now.

Yet there _was_ one thing he instinctively knew to be true: it wouldn't be the last time they had met.

Blasts of scorching air were shooting at them as they stood there looking after them.

"What do we do now, Skipper?" Private asked as he came up to his leader's side.

Skipper heaved a deep sigh. Grains of sand rasped against his feathers, abraded his throat, and scraped on the lining inside his beak as he opened it to answer, "The same thing we wanted to do before: we'll take the lemurs home. Never mind Clemson; we'll get him yet."

He turned to get back inside the helicopter.

"You know, maybe it's best that way. It might be a pity he escapes his punishment for now, but who knows what kind of havoc that wannabe king would've wreaked over Madagascar if he'd ever actually gotten the chance to go there. – Sure he would've been a prisoner," he added with a hint of sarcasm, "But that's just what he was now, and we all see how long we were actually able to keep him under control… "

"That lemur sure is a survivor," Kowalski sighed; he was back on his feet after all.

Clover clenched her paws into fists. "Curse him! Curse them both! I bet not even Larry himself would ever be able to keep these fellows in a volcano if they determined on getting out!"

"I guess you're right," Julien said to Skipper, "We're really best off if Clemson just stays far, far away from our home island."

Then they got back inside the helicopter and resumed the flight.

* * *

The sun was already reaching its zenith when they thundered down the desert highway at double the posted speed limit. All around was the plain with its unchanging horizon, with only the couple on the motorbike speeding through those sun-flooded steppe expanses, with only the sound of the engine and the wind that shattered the endless silence. As they rolled smoothly over the sand-covered road surface, the tranquil sound of a distant train whistle echoed in their ears from afar, painting a broad smile across their faces.

It felt good. So very good. They cherished every second of their journey, savoring the simple pleasure of watching the landscape around them. There was virtually no vegetation or any other living thing here, just heat devils and mirages in the distance. It was only the two of them alone out here, and the vast empty stretches of land around them. They had the entire desert to themselves.

"So, where are we going actually?" Mea asked cheerfully after a while.

Clemson sighed. "I don't know."

"What are we going to do?"

"I really don't know."

Mea was silent for a while. "Sounds fucking good to me," he replied then, "Let's go with it."

Clemson smiled. He wound up doing a slow slalom around some smaller dunes just for the fun of it. He loved to drive aimlessly like this; the smooth, swift motion gave him an invigorating, most glorious feeling of freedom. Watching the sun turn the dunes to gold and feeling the immense stillness all around as they soared along like this, face in the wind, he enjoyed this refreshing, sun-soaked day as much as he hadn't enjoyed any for a long time. He also relished Mea's presence, the feeling of being close to him now that he was alive and functioning flawlessly again. The android sat in the seat right behind him, plastered against his maker' back, his knees bracketing Clemson's hips, his arms wrapped around Clemson's waist. All this gave him bliss without end; it had a mesmerizing, almost narcotic effect on him. He was free, he had Mea by his side – for the first time in a very long while he felt he had found perfect harmony both in his surroundings and within himself.

"So, right now it seems we're stuck in the middle of nowhere. There's literally nothing out here. Sooner or later we might want to find… I don't know, a place to live or something. – Oh, and some power of course." He took a quick glance back over his shoulder at the android, and he liked the way the wind ruffled Mea's hair until it was haloing his face in wild auburn curls. "How long do you have left?"

The android checked his battery status. "89 per cent. That's about two days."

"Alright, that should be enough to find you something to recharge yourself with, like a high-tension power line."

"Yummy."

They drove in silence for a while, staring into the unforgettable blue of the cloud-free sky over their heads. "You know, since your arch-enemy and his folks moved out, in the Central Park Zoo a royal place of employment must've just become available," Mea said then.

Intrigued, Clemson thought about this for a while but then decided against it. "No. I owe Skipper my life…," he replied, hesitating, "And you owe Kowalski yours."

"So?"

But Clemson shook his head. He didn't want to go back to New York.

Mea was silent for a while before he asked, "Okay then, how about invading Madagascar?"

Clemson smiled as he reached back, cupping his paw over one of Mea's iron-bolstered knees.

"You never give up, do you."

"Not until I've fulfilled the purpose I was programmed for."

Clemson winced a little, remembering Kowalski's words. _Replace me?_ "What do you mean?"

"Well, make you king, of course! That was your dream, remember?" The android wrapped his arms a little tighter around Clemson's waist, pulling him even closer. "Please don't tell me you've given up on it and let those bastards discourage you!"

Mea's words were filled with life, encouragement, passion, and sincerity. They overpowered and replaced any memory of what Kowalski had told him before – Clemson remembered all too well how his words had chilled him, scared him – but now he just laughed and laughed at them in gleeful mockery.

"I haven't," he answered, a dark smile touching his eyes. "Sure, we may have been through a lot lately. We may have lost our home and our army… but at least we haven't lost each other. I'm convinced that with your help I'll find a way to become the King of Madagascar at last!"

He took his right paw off the handle and clenched it into a furious fist that struck the heavens above with untold force. "Just wait until I get my claws on you again, _ex-king._ I'll get you yet, and then I'm going to make you pay for everything you and your folks tried to take from me. Oh, I'll make you beg for your life – you and your people will be my slaves before you know it! I swear you, the day will come I'll march right into your realm and crush you without mercy, and of your people I'll harvest more victims than you can count! – And then, my dear Julien… you'll be sorry!"

* * *

"We're home! Look, everybody, _we're home!_ "

Mort gave little squeaks of joy as the helicopter roughly touched down and bounced a couple of times, jostling pilot and passengers before settling on the beach of Madagascar. The three older lemurs were by his side in an instant; before the rotors had even stopped turning they flung the doors open and jumped down from the craft.

The penguins gathered up their luggage from the back of the helicopter and then they, too, stepped out into the dazzling tropical sunset of Madagascar. They were in awe at the sight; they hadn't been here for so long now that they had completely forgotten how beautiful the sunset in these islands could be. They squinted into the scarlet sky. Tall clouds crowned the tops of some hills to the east which were covered in a mosaic of forest and environments including wooded savanna and evergreen, open grassland. The climate was warm, humid, and overall very different from the one in New York. Even now that dusk was falling already, it was hot! The tropical sun caressed their faces, and a soft breeze off the sea ruffled their feathers.

"Good job, boys," Skipper said, "Operation 'Take The Lemurs Home' sure turned into one long, tedious undertaking, but it looks like we've finally made it!" And then they traded high-fives, like they always did when they'd successfully completed a mission." – High Five! – Low Five! – Down low! – Too slow! – Aw." Private pouted when Skipper withdrew his flipper before he could give him the last slap.

With a smile they watched the lemurs romp over the silken sand along the water's edge, splashing and running and throwing sand at each other. Even Clover, for once, seemed to enjoy herself to the fullest as she threw her head back in hearty laughter and bounced across the sand with gleeful squeals. They had the whole beach to themselves as there were no other lemurs around here; they'd landed on the less populated windward side of the island.

For a long while the four penguins just enjoyed each other's company in the soothing, delicious calm of the late summer's evening. They waddled by the low-tide line, the cool waves reaching out and grabbing their webbed feet, salty water sloshing about their toes, until the lemurs would join them again.

Julien indicated he wanted to leave and beckoned the penguins to follow them. "Come with us and meet our people! We'll have a great party to celebrate our homecoming!"

The penguin leader frowned mildly. "A lemur party? No, thanks. My nerves were frayed past the breaking point back then in Hoboken already!"

Julien watched Kowalski put his aviator goggles back on, disappointment etched across his face. "But… but this means…"

"Yes." Skipper gave him a warm smile. "This is goodbye, Ringtail."

Julien's voice was low as he shifted his gaze to where his feet pushed into the soft sand. "I see. Alright." He took a deep breath before he added, "So, farewell then, penguins! We're going to miss you guys a lot. Take care, and come back here anytime you want."

"Aww…!" Rico grabbed the lemurs and gave them a bear hug.

Private blinked back the moisture that came to his eyes. "But… but what do we say now if someone asks us who's the king of our zoo?" he stammered.

The lemurs looked at each other. "Eh, just say Alex," Julien decided then, "That'll always work." – Laughing, they all agreed to this.

"Time's gone by way too fast," Maurice said with a smile when he then hugged Skipper.

The leader nodded thoughtfully. "It sure has. Take care of yourself, Maurice. – You, too, Ringtail. And that's an order!"

Julien playfully saluted him. "Yes, Sir."

Now Kowalski and Rico as well were shaking the king's paw and everyone else's, too. Then the rogue penguin ruffled little Mort's hair with a soft grumble.

"Rico says there will always be a chainsaw or a stick of dynamite left in his belly to protect you guys in case you need him to," Kowalski explained, and the lemurs smiled at this.

Skipper then saluted Julien's bodyguard. "Clover, it was an honor serving with you."

"Same here." She looked at him, clear green eyes filled with warmth; any fight they'd had before about Clemson's survival was now forgotten.

"You truly are a trustworthy, most reliable soldier and an excellent captain." – Skipper nodded toward his men. – "So, if you ever want to apply to become a member of an elite commando unit…"

Clover smiled; from the look in her eyes he could tell how much his words meant to her.

"I'm honored," she truthfully answered, "But my place is with the Ringtail Guard at King Julien's service."

Skipper nodded. "Very well. I still hope I'll get the chance to serve with you again one day, though."

"So do I." – She glanced at the rest of her pack. – "We _will_ go visit them again, won't we?"

The other three lemurs nodded eagerly.

"Just come and visit us anytime you miss good old New York," Skipper said, and he then felt soft fur brush against his feathers when Julien embraced him one last time.

"Thank you, for everything," the lemur king whispered into his ear, "We owe you our lives a dozen times over. Without you guys we couldn't have made it through those past years! I'm sorry if sometimes we weren't the neighbors you wished for. I miss our little quarrels already! And still you stood by us and saved us so many times… We'll never forget what you've done for us."

"Happy to serve, Ringtail," Skipper murmured and suddenly had to swallow before he could find his voice again to add, "Now move out, will you! Your people are waiting for you." – When Julien withdrew from their embrace, Skipper smiled at his sight; he looked so happy, so peaceful and content, like he had hardly ever seen him back then in New York. He belonged here; Madagascar was his home, and Skipper saw how good it was that they'd brought the lemurs back here, that despite the horrors and fear and pain they'd all had to go through they had dared to go on this long journey.

Julien's face glowed in warm hues reflected from the sunset sky, his silver hair, windblown and free, fell around his face in soft curls as he raised his paw in a goodbye wave, and then the four lemurs were ready to leave. But Julien turned back to the penguins once more and said to Skipper, "I promise that every once in a while we'll sing a song for you that will rise above the mountains and the stars and the sea, so you can hear it wherever you are. And if we needed your help and begged you to come, it would lead you back to us."

And Skipper smiled, and they'd rarely seen him smile with such genuine emotion, as he answered, "Let's hope we meet again under more pleasant circumstances. But if we ever hear your song, you can count on us to make our way back here; then, I'm sure, the old, old winds will blow us back around, and the fossa's roar will help us search for you and seek you out."

Private couldn't watch the lemurs leave. He faced away from them, fighting back tears.

"Goodbye, guys! We'll never forget you!" he finally called out, turning to wave his flipper after them in a wide arc.

Maurice's voice was already faint with distance, but they could make out his last words.

"Goodbye. Take care of yourselves!"

And then they were gone, with nothing left but a couple of paw prints in the sand.

The beach seemed endless.

The penguin team stood there another moment in silence as if to imprint the last image of their ex-neighbors indelibly in their memory. Then they turned to leave in the opposite direction, heading back towards the helicopter. Private trudged a little behind the others; he wiped his face with the tip of his flipper and kept sniveling for a while. Emotional as he was, he'd always been the one farewells were hardest for.

The sun had set almost completely by now, leaving a red rim of light just above the horizon line. They waddled along in silence for several minutes under a now star-filled sky, just gazing at the vista of the coastline, enjoying the languid serenity of the magnificent tropical night, the gentle ocean breeze caressing their faces.

"I hope they'll be alright. Whatever they're doing now, we won't be just one habitat away to fix it," Kowalski said after a while.

Skipper nodded. "They will be. They've been living and surviving here before without our help, too. – Luckily they've got Clover. She can make up for a lot of commando skills they're going to miss now that we're not with them anymore."

"So, are we going home now, Skipper?" Private asked.

"We better do," Kowalski said, fiddling with his smartphone, "Just now I register some sudden, strange power cuts around the National Zoo in Rabat, capital town of Morocco. – You know, the state where we, uh… were forced to make an intermediate landing… um, Skipper?"

The leader had paused to stare into the dark sky across the vastness of the ocean one more time. The faint lapping of the waves was the only sound that interrupted the silence. His gaze had moved to the distance, and he seemed very lost in his thoughts. "Hell, I'm going to miss these troublemakers!" he sighed then, most untypically sentimental.

The three other penguins looked at each other. Just as Private was about to whisper something to Rico behind his leader's back, Skipper turned around again, expression determined and voice firm as ever.

"Right, let's check this, stat. Roll out, men."

* * *

The entire lemur population of Madagascar had assembled to welcome their king back. Hundreds of lemurs were clustered around the big baobab, screaming, clapping, stamping their feet, wound up into near hysteria as they shouted out Julien's name. The noise was deafening. As the head of the security personnel Clover had her paws full to organize the Ringtail Guard and to keep rioters from getting any closer to the royal home, where Julien was getting ready to present himself to his people in the way he knew best: by giving them a show.

Mort was already outside doing sound and lighting tests, and Julien was enjoying the last few peaceful moments in his hut alone with Maurice. They hadn't even taken the time yet to unpack their bags and suitcases; right after they'd arrived, they'd thrown their luggage in the corner and then immediately started to prepare themselves to meet the rest of the kingdom. Maurice was already fully dressed up in his best leaves and about to help Julien into his festive outfit, a procedure which took quite some time.

"Not so tight, please. Let it be a little loose…!" the king protested when his advisor helped him readjust his bow tie and tugged the laces of his fancy suit tight, cinching Julien's waist and putting pressure on his chest. "Oh Frank, I can't breathe! You'll snap my rib, Momo!"

Maurice laughed. "You were a very young lemur when we went away from here back then. You must've still grown a bit!"

He helped him into his tuxedo, and then Julien brushed his hair and tail for the twentieth time and continued reading through the song list pinned next to the mirror, trying to memorize it. Outside they could hear the dull roar of voices, subdued shouts and laughter, and cries of _Ju-li-en, Ju-li-en_ as all the lemurs began clapping their paws and beating time with their feet while shouting their king's name in unison. When Julien looked out through the window, he could see Stevie sit there on the throne, faithfully holding the crown ready to give it back to him when he would come down.

"Look, Maurice, I am… _loved_ ," he whispered, deeply moved, "They love me! Oh, Frank bless them all! They still love me, although I've been away for so long. It feels so good to be home again… Oh Momo, it feels so good to be loved." Maurice smiled. The young lemur's face was brimming with excitement. "– Oh, but which song am I going to play first? Is the boombox ready? Is my keytar properly tuned?"

"Relax. You're going to do just fine!" Maurice tried to calm him, "Come on, it's not the first time you do this. Back then you used to have shows all the time!"

"Yes, but tonight I need to be perfect."

Putting the finishing touches on his king's bow tie, Maurice gave him a warm smile. _You're already perfect just the way you are, little prince,_ he thought to himself but didn't dare say it aloud. "Which one of those do you prefer wearing?" he asked instead, showing him two necklaces neatly lying in a wooden box.

"Mmh… this one." Julien picked one of them out of the box, and then lifted the strands of his neck fur a bit, indicating that he wanted Maurice to put it around his neck. Maurice took the piece of jewelry, brightly colored and intricately patterned, from the box and fastened it around his king's neck from behind. When he was done, his fingers stayed a moment on the nape of Julien's neck and then came to rest on his shoulder… and then Julien's paw traveled up, and he put it over Maurice's to hold it there.

"Thank you, Maurice." Slowly, Julien turned to face him, and their eyes met – and Julien's golden eyes, which just a moment ago had been full of joy and excitement now suddenly had that same strange expression Maurice had seen in them before, back then in the Alchimus Hospital, when they'd both been scared to death and about to be devoured by the flames.

In a barely audible voice, Maurice heard himself ask, "What did you want to tell me when we were trapped there in the fire?"

Julien just gave him a mute stare, obviously unable to find the right words. Then he sat down across from him, suddenly blushing all over. "There's no point in hiding behind closed lips about it…" he finally murmured, more to himself than to Maurice, while he nervously brushed an errant strand of silver fur behind his ear. Then he reached for the other lemur's paw, gathered it in his, and pulled Maurice down next to him. "You know, when we were there in the flames together, I realized something."

His lashes dropped, concealing the soft glow of his eyes. Goose bumps covered Maurice's arms all of a sudden, making his fur stand on end. When Julien looked at him again, he caught the intensity of his gaze, the throb in his voice, and dared to hope – to hope for words he'd never in his life believed to hear…

"I was convinced then that there was no hope anyway and that we'd burn to death, and I feared I wouldn't get a second chance to let you know about it," Julien murmured, very low.

Maurice took his king's paws and brought them to his chest. Julien carefully rested his fingers upon his heartbeat as Maurice gazed at him and saw him as the world must see him, that lovely face both beautiful and serious, and his eyes, his deep golden eyes that had haunted him for so long… in his sleep, when he was awake – Julien was always there. Awake, they were sometimes together, sometimes apart, together much more often than apart, though, but inside, on his mind, in his dreams, he was always _there_ , his king, his best friend… He leaned even closer and caught Julien's paw between both of his, smoothing his thumbs over short silver fur.

"What did you realize?" he asked, sounding almost anxious.

Julien lifted Maurice's paw and pressed his palm to his cheek.

"Well, I realized that there's something I need to tell you. In fact, it's something that I've wanted to tell you for a long time, but… I haven't had the nerve to tell you before now, and – and the occasion just never seemed to arise." His arms came around Maurice's neck, and suddenly they were very close. "I've always wanted to tell you how much…" – He stopped, stammering. – "How much I –."

Just then the door of the royal hut flew open. "Have you guys finished wasting time in here? Your people are waiting, King Julien!" – Clover was standing there, arms full of amplifiers and other sound equipment. "Mort says, these are too small," she reported, putting the amplifiers down. "But I estimate we've got enough bigger ones, so we should do well without them."

They broke apart, startled. Maurice closed his eyes for a second, wishing that just for once, this _once_ , she would've given her duties a little less serious consideration.

Clover's eyes flicked between them for a moment; blushing all over, Maurice silently begged the Sky Gods to make sure she hadn't seen his true feelings on his face.

"Sorry I interrupted you. Did you just want to say something, Your Majesty?"

"Well, uh, I…" Looking terribly embarrassed, Julien got up quickly and started to walk across the room, frantically searching for words as he did so. He glanced out the window through which he could see the crowd of lemurs at the foot of the baobab, and his eyes lit up.

"Yes! I wanted to say: let's remember to sing a song for the penguins!"

This put a soft expression on Clover's face. "We absolutely will, Your Majesty. – Now come on; everybody's waiting for you. You can't stall any longer." She handed Julien his keytar and then pushed him and Maurice out of the hut. "Get out there and hit it!"

They'd barely taken one step out of the hut when the volume outside grew ear-splitting. The swell of a thousand voices greeted them; it was as though the whole sky was filled with them, and every single one of them was singing Julien's name.

Basking in the glorious moment, the lemur king opened his arms and embraced the light and sound and music, released the past, and reveled in the love he felt from his people for the first time in so very long, relishing the feeling of being home.

As the three of them began climbing down the giant baobab tree, the heartfelt chanting of their fellow lemurs reached deep into their core and melted away the fear and terror that had filled their hearts all the time they'd been in Hoboken. Now these memories of pain melted away as though they had never existed. The whole dreadful episode shrunk into nothing but a forgotten moment that happened long ago, a speck of time, blown away forever, like ashes in the wind.

Maurice closed his eyes as light and music enveloped him, warmth encircled him, and nothing but bliss remained to flood his soul, washing away all pain, all regret, and all sorrow.

All the way down the tree Julien never let go of his paw.

X X X

* * *

 **A/N:** _This is it! Now before leaving the storytellers' stage, I feel I need to thank a couple of people: first and foremost my readers of course, thank you so much for keeping the faith all along. Your kind words warmed my heart, inspired me, and helped me through with this all the time, through all the difficult passages. Thank you so very much for always coming back to read and encouraging me to do my best._

 _My best regards to the Silent Hill Community! You guys really sent me through Heaven and Hell with that mod of yours, for which I tried to honor you with countless allusions… above all of course, Alchimus… Alchemilla… and many more ;-) Without you this story wouldn't have been possible.  
Also, a wink to all the W.A.S.P. fans out there (if there are still any nowadays …); this is my version of 'Chainsaw Charlie' and the 'Murders in the Morgue', thank you such a lot for all the snowy evenings filled with candlelight and heavy metal._

 _There will be a third one and last part, 'Wild Tales'. I'm going to list it as AHKJ/PoM crossover because it will take place on Madagascar but still feature the penguins. I'll try to do it next winter, but unfortunately I can't promise anything yet; all I can say for now is that Mort, Masikura, and Karl will have a bigger role. Anyway, should you guys still be around by the time it's finished, you're warmly invited to take your magic wands and join the ride!_

 _Love, peace, and inspiration to all you writers and readers out there!  
\- Nemo_


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